The Apocalypse Virus
by Byl Glinka
Summary: If Neo dies, Zion still has a back-up plan.
1. Chapter 1:  Helios is unplugged

Author's note: The storyline and characters of The Matrix are not my property, and I make no claims to them. The following work is intended for the free entertainment of Matrix fans and is in no way intended for profit or to harm the profits of Warner Brothers.   
  
  
The Matrix: The Apocalypse Virus Chapter 1  
  


** The Matrix has you, Helios.  
**whats the matrix?**  
Everything.  
**i need a straight answer**  
You're like us.  
You want the truth, we have it.  
Don't go to school tomorrow.  
**NO CARRIER_
"Fuck, whatever." Vince fell backward onto his unmade bed. "If the moron didn't even want to give me a screen name, he's not worth talking to." His room was cluttered and messy, with dirty clothes scattered across the floor. All in all, a typical high school freshman's bedroom except for the perfectly clean, freshly dusted desk with a state-of-the-art computer sitting proudly on it.   
"Vince, go to bed." His mother commanded from outside his triple-locked door.   
"Whatever, Mom."   
"I'm serious. I don't want you staying up all night on that blasted computer."   
"Good night, Mom. Snore-snore-snore." His voice dripped with sarcasm.   
_Bitch. You go to sleep. I don't sleep. I code._   
And Vince went back to coding his virus.   
  


* * *

  
**Knock knock knock**   
"Vincent get up and go to school." His mother commanded through his locked door again.   
"I can't go, I'm sick."   
"I knew this was going to happen, with you staying up all night on that blasted computer."   
"Computers can't make people sick, Mom, it's flu season."   
"Fine stay home. But I'm bringing your homework to you."   
"Okay Mom. Whatever."   
"I'm going to work."   
"_Okay_ Mom whatever."   


** You're curious, Helios.  
That's good.  
**whats the matrix?**  
Today you find out.  
**when**  
Meet me at the library in an hour.  
**who am i looking for**  
I'll find you.  
We'll show you what The Matrix is.  
**why should i trust you**  
You have nothing to lose.  
And only the truth to gain.  
**NO CARRIER_
"Well it's not like I have anything better to do." Vince mused, curiosity getting the best of him. "I can finish this thing any time." He got up from the computer, showered, dressed, grabbed a Pop Tart and left.   
No sooner had he gotten within sight of the library than a man in his fifties started walking next to him. "Don't react. Just follow me into the library. I'm putting you in danger just by talking to you."   
"What kind of danger?"   
"The Matrix doesn't like people to know what it is."   
Vince stopped walking in front of the door. "Give me one reason to trust you before I go in there with you."   
"Hackers stick together, don't we? We're all on the same team. Trying to take down the computers that are in our way. A blow to one of us is a blow to all of us. We've been keeping track of you, Helios, and we need your help. It's a big challenge. I think you'll enjoy it."   
"You _are_ familiar with the concept of entrapment?"   
The man laughed. "I don't blame you for being careful. Come on, I'll fill you in on the details inside. The third floor is empty and there's a phone if I need it."   
They walked the rest of the way in silence. When they finally sat down on the third floor, within arm's reach of a public phone, the man started talking again. "My name is Spectrum."   
"What's your real name?"   
"That _is_ my real name, Helios. Your fake name is Vincent Hennigan. My fake name, the one I was given here, I prefer to forget. Have you ever heard of the Apocalypse Virus?"   
"Apocalypse? No, I can't say that I have. I certainly didn't write it. And I think I would have heard by now if someone else was working on it."   
"My team and I are writing it. We're going to use it to take down the world's largest computer system. Permanently."   
"The Matrix?"   
"Smart kid. Yeah, The Matrix. The problem is, we're stuck. We hit a roadblock and we can't get over it."   
"And you want me to help you because I wrote the ButtPlug virus that hit two months ago, right?"   
"You're arrogant and crass, but you're good. That virus was a work of art, Helios. It struck an estimated 500 computers on the East Coast but only took down your two targets, those Census Bureau computers. And then just to be an ass about it you distributed the cleaning program as freeware to get it off your non-targets, which essentially erased all the evidence. You're arrogant and crass, but you're good."   
"Yeah, that was me." Vince beamed. "So you're writing the most destructive virus the world has ever seen, and you want the best to help you get it done. Okay, I'm in."   
"There's a catch." Spectrum's face grew solemn. "Once you join our team, there's no going back. You're with us forever. Your whole world will be changed in ways you could never believe unless you saw it yourself. You can never go back, but you'll never want to either. Let me ask you something. Is there anyone you'll miss?"   
"Fuck no. My Mom's a bitch, my best friend gets beat up twice a week, and my dad ran off with some blonde whore when I was ten. And you're offering me a chance to ditch the rest of high school and write viruses for a living? If there's a catch, I'd like to know what it is."   
"Okay. I brought with me a red pill and a blue pill." Spectrum took out two pills that looked exactly like NyQuil and DayQuil. "Take the red pill and you can come with me, but remember there's no turning back. Ever. Take the blue pill and you can go home and forget everything we've talked about. Just prepare yourself for one, simple truth. Everything you know, literally everything you know, is a lie."   
Up until that second, everything Spectrum had been telling Vince was basically an entertaining story. At that second, when he heard the tone of Spectrum's voice, the reality of the situation came crashing down on him. _Everything you know, is a lie._ He was serious. "So, my world will be changed forever." He stared at the two pills, wondering if he really wanted to know what this guy was talking about. In the end his curiosity got the best of him.   
"This isn't acid, is it?" He asked.   
"Worse. It's the truth."   
"My world, changed forever. Aw hell, it can't get any worse." Before he could talk himself out of it, he popped the red pill in his mouth. "So what happens now?"   
"That pill was a tracking program. We're going to pull you out of The Matrix."   
"What do you mean pull me out of The Matrix? What does this giant computer system have to do with me?"   
"You'll find out in about five seconds. One piece of advice: before you fall, take a deep breath." Spectrum reached back and lifted the pay phone's receiver, dialing zero. "He's about to be flushed, get ready."   
  


* * *

  
Before he could ask another question he had the sensation he just woke up from a dream when he thought he was awake the whole time. He tried to move and found two things disturbing. One, he was crouching in a fetal position in a warm puddle of goo. Two, his back was pressed up against something cold and hard, preventing him from sitting up.   
With a hiss that sounded like a subway train the cold, hard lid opened up. He sat up as quickly as he could and ripped a plastic and metal device away from his mouth. He took a deep breath and immediately coughed out the thick, polluted air. He wheezed a few times and wiped the goo away from his eyes. He immediately wished he hadn't.   
It was dark, not quite night, but like an extremely overcast day. He was sitting upright in a small black pod of some sort, filled with pink slime. There were rows and rows of identical pods stretching out as far as they eye could see off to the left and right. He felt weak, the same feeling as he'd always imagined someone would have after waking up from a ten year coma. His muscles barely responded, just moving was painful.   
Looking down at his arms, he saw several cables sticking into round ports in his flesh. He panicked, ripping away at them, pulling them out. As he did, another, larger cable pulled itself out from the back of his head. He was starting to wonder if the red pill he took really was some kind of hallucinogen. That was when the pink slime started swirling below him, draining through a hole in the bottom of the pod. It pulled him down with it, threatening to drag him into whatever it was draining into. His arms lashed out wildly, trying to grab a hold of something, anything to keep from falling down.   
He failed. He felt himself falling down a long, smooth tube of some kind, then the horrible sensation of free fall. It was just a fraction of a second, and he fell into a deep pool of disgusting water. He tried to swim, but he was too weak, and too tired from his failed attempt at saving himself. His head went under again and again. He started coughing up water. There was nothing to hold on to, no bottom to stand on. He felt he was going to die, and lost consciousness.   
  
He woke up on a hard, smooth table. He tried to open his eyes but the light hurt too much. "Hello?" He coughed out weakly. "Who's there?"   
"Finally, you're awake. Don't try to move, you're okay. You're on my ship."   
He thought he recognized the voice. "Spectrum?"   
"Yes, it's me. Dim the lights." His command was followed by someone, but Helios' eyes still hurt too much to open them. "I know you've got a lot of questions. So did I when I was pulled out of The Matrix. But I can't tell you what just happened, not yet. I need to show you. And we can't get to that until we've finished rebuilding your muscles and getting your eyes adjusted to light for the first time. It will all be clear in a moment. Can you see yet?"   
Helios opened his eyes, very slowly. He had to blink a few times, but he could open them. "It's dark."   
"Your eyes are still too sensitive. We'll keep the lights dim for a little while."   
"Why are all these needles in me?"   
"We're sending electrical impulses directly into your muscles to repair them. You see, you've never used them until just now. You've never used your eyes, your ears, your mouth... everything you thought was real was a dream. Or rather a nightmare, as I'll show you when we're finished here. Right now, just try to sleep." For the first time in his insomniac life, Helios had no problem doing just that.   
  


* * *

  
"He's waking back up." The voice was not Spectrum's. Helios had to blink a lot just to open his eyes, but when he did he found himself in a dark metal room, with tubes, cables, panels, and other equipment lining the walls. There were several people in the room with him, including Spectrum. He found that he could move now, albeit stiffly.   
"Where am I? And what just happened?"   
Spectrum answered him. "You just woke up. Come with me to the observation deck."   
"You said I was on a ship, you mean like a boat?"   
"A hovercraft, actually. The _Light Bringer_." Spectrum answered him as they walked down some hallways, all following a similar theme to the room they were just in. Dark metal, with tubes and cables strewn about. "Look out the window."   
"Holy shit!" Helios pushed both hands up to the glass. In front of the ship he saw the rows and rows of pods, just like the one he woke up in. "What are those things? How did I get in one of them?"   
"The life you were living was a lie, Helios. You were born in one of those pods. You lived for fourteen years in one. Feel the back of your head. That hole in your skull is an input/output port, sending you signals, making you believe that you were walking around in a fictional world, created by the world's largest computer network. That network, The Matrix, is the system that we need you to help us take down."   
Spectrum turned to a woman sitting at a console. "Mako, turn the _Light Bringer_ 90 degrees port." The ship started to turn. "Look over there, at the remains of that city. Years ago, mankind developed a highly advanced artificial intelligence. Computers running that AI ran networks, controlled traffic, operated industrial robots, explored Mars, even upgraded and reprogrammed themselves. Some people started to get scared, the computers were getting too smart, they were trusted with too much.   
"No one remembers who fired the first shot, but war erupted between the machines and mankind. Look at the sky, we did that. The machines used to run on solar power. We thought that by blacking out the sun we could shut them down. We didn't expect them to find a new power source quickly enough to survive. That's where the pods come in. The human nervous system generates several volts of electricity, the body generates its own heat. With enough rows of humans born, raised, living, and dying in those pods the machines could generate enough power to keep running. Running off a clean, renewable resource. People live out their lives in The Matrix, believing the world around them is real. An entire false civilization, the ultimate charade, dedicated to one thing, Helios, and one thing only. To turn a human being, into this." He pulled a battery out of his pocket. The horrifying, awful truth of The Matrix summed up in a two inch copper-topped cylinder.   
Helios looked out the window, silent for several minutes. "And that's why you pulled me out. So I can help you write the Apocalypse Virus and take down The Matrix."   
"Exactly. Without their artificial world to live in the humans in those pods would die. The machines would lose a major portion of their power source, and we could mount a full offensive, hopefully retaking the world in the name of mankind."   
"And that's it? All those people die?"   
"They're already dead, Helios. All 6 billion of them. They were never alive, they just don't know it. But this isn't the first option, come over here."   
Spectrum and Helios walked over to a computer. Spectrum pulled up a couple files. "This is Morpheus. He runs another one of the ships."   
"He looks kind of like Laurence Fishburne."   
"Yeah, he gets that a lot. The woman is Trinity."   
"You mean _the_ Trinity? The one who cracked the NSA server?"   
"That was a long time ago, but yes, that's her. Morpheus pulled her out of The Matrix shortly after that."   
"I was wondering why it seemed she just fell off the face of the Earth... I guess she really did. What about the other guy?"   
"That's Neo. I'll tell you more about him in a bit. These guys are the high-profile group. They're working toward the ideal solution to the problem, trying to take everyone out of The Matrix. We'll get to that later too. Right now I'm going to show you what we can do with that port in the back of your head."   
"Whoa, whoa, hold on a minute. This is going really fast here. Just a few minutes ago I was a kid in The Matrix. Now I'm part of a resistance group on a hovercraft fighting a war against killer robots. Don't I at least get to meet everyone else?"   
"Sorry." Spectrum smiled. "I guess I was getting ahead of myself. I'm just eager to get you trained so we can continue work on the Apocalypse Virus. The woman at the helm there is Mako. She's my first officer." Spectrum gestured to an attractive young woman sitting at the far wall. She looked Hispanic, but the first thing Helios noticed was the absence of an I/O port in the back of her skull.   
"It's because I wasn't born in the Matrix." She answered the unspoken question on his face. "There's one city left, called Zion. That's where I was born. I can't go into The Matrix, I just fly the ship and run the Simulators."   
Spectrum continued, pointing down the hallway to two men sitting at a table eating a disgusting white slop. "And over there in the mess hall are our resident deviants, D-Mac and Lyninux." They waved.   
"Pendragon is asleep right now, she's taking first watch at night. You'll meet her later. And Format C: is around here somewhere. She keeps to herself, you'll meet her whenever she decides to turn up."   
"Why does everyone go by their handles here?"   
"Because those are the names we gave ourselves, not the names given to us in The Matrix. It makes us feel like we're not pawns of the machines anymore. Come on, I promised I'd show you what we can do with that port in your head."   
  


* * *

  
A few hours later Spectrum walked back into the room. Helios was laying on a bench jacked into the computer, being fed information at an incredible rate. Everything they knew about The Matrix's code, everything they could teach him about armed and unarmed combat, detailed schematics on the _Light Bringer's_ computer systems, controls, weapons... and he was soaking it all up like a sponge.   
"How's it coming along, Mako?" He asked.   
"Pretty good. We pulled him out nice and young, he hasn't been in The Matrix long enough to put up the mental barriers that keep him from accepting all this change all at once. He's learning fast."   
Spectrum unplugged Helios from his couch. "I want to put you in the Simulator now. We're going to show you some things." He tilted his head to look down a hallway. "Lyninux, get in here." In a moment, one of the two guys Helios saw in the mess hall walked into the room. He didn't seem to like talking much. "We're going to hook you up into the Simulator with Lyninux here. He's going to teach you how to manipulate The Matrix, things you'll need to know when you go back in."   
"You mean you're going to put me back in one of those pods?" Helios asked. "I just got out, I don't want to go back in."   
"No, no. We can jack into The Matrix from the ship, it's a lot safer. You're going to need to go see some things for yourself, understand how The Matrix works, before you can help us destroy it."   
"I'm still not sure about bringing down The Matrix like that, Spectrum. All those people just... well, dying. It doesn't really sit well with me."   
"It's only going to happen as a last resort, if the Morpheus's crew fails and we **can't** get everyone out." Spectrum put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "We're Plan B, the only contingency plan. If you go soft on us, those 6 billion slaves will live and humanity, as free people, will become extinct."   
Helios looked out the window. On one side he saw the ruins of whatever city that was. On the other the rows of pods that reached out to the horizon. Above it all, the overcast, smoke filled sky, blacking out the sun.   
"Yesterday I was a high school student. Today I'm the last backup plan for the survival of the human race. It's a bit much to take in."   
"You don't have to decide now. We still have a lot to show you about The Matrix. Right now, let's put you in the Simulator."   
  


* * *

  
Helios looked around, all he saw was white, pure white, as far as the eye could see. No walls, no floor, no ceiling. He heard a sound and looked toward it, not believing his eyes. A wire frame model of a man was being generated next to him, starting rough, adding detail, finally fleshing out and adding skin. It was Lyninux.   
"This is the Simulator. We can put you anywhere, add any details, any props. Movie producers would kill for this technology." Spectrum's voice came out of nowhere, but everywhere. Let's try that Kung-Fu you just learned."   
As Helios looked around a hard wood floor appeared under his feet. Then walls, bleachers, basketball nets, the place looked like a high-school gymnasium. Lyninux, who had seen it all before, began stretching. That was when Helios noticed they were both wearing martial arts uniforms with the world _Zion_ embroidered over the left front pocket and across the back   
"Hi." Helios walked over to Lyninux. "We haven't really met. I'm Vince... I mean Helios. I used to be Vince."   
"H-hu-hu-hi." Lyninux stuttered out. "I'm Lyninux. Th-They said you w-wuh-were a g-good hacker."   
"Yuh-Yeah." Helios stammered, mocking Lyninux's stutter. "I'm ruh-really guh-good." Lyninux glared at him, obviously not amused.   
"Helios!" Spectrum's voice snapped at him, making him jump. "We're working as a team here. That means we have to get along. You weren't our first choice, you know. You're interpersonal skills are abysmal. But you're going to have to learn how to deal with people. If you can't, we really will put you back in a pod."   
"All right, all right, I'm _sorry_." Helios replied, sarcastically. "What happens now?"   
"We start your training. Attack Lyninux." Lyninux kicked high twice to finish stretching, then assumed a defensive martial arts stance, one foot forward, both arms blocking high. He was easily a head taller than the 14-year old boy. "Go."   
"Aaaarrrgghhh!" Helios rushed forward, trying to body tackle Lyninux. The next thing he knew, his neck and stomach hurt, and he was tumbling through the air backwards. He landed hard on his back.   
"Damn it, Helios, we just taught you Kung-Fu. Use it!"   
Helios got up, mad. He tried a roundhouse kick to the air just to see how it looked. He liked it. "All right... here we go." He rushed Lyninux again, this time launching himself into a straight-leg jump kick aimed at his head.   
Again, the next thing he knew his leg was twisted around and he was falling face-first to the floor. "Ouch! I didn't even see him move."   
"That's because Lyninux is our unarmed and non-lethal combat expert. He hasn't lost a fight in the Simulator in two years." Spectrum's voice said.   
"Well that's about to change." Helios got up. This time he didn't charge Lyninux, he approached him slowly. Then, suddenly, he threw a series of punches and kicks, each one looking like it was thrown by a professional kickboxer who had been training for years.   
Lyninux blocked them all, one after the other. "You're no... not f-f-fuh-focused. Hih-hit through your t-tar-target."   
"If you taught me Kung-Fu, how come I'm not as good as Lyninux?"   
"Because we can only download knowledge into your brain, not experience. That's what the Simulator is for."   
Helios was slowly making Lyninux walk backwards as he threw his attacks, even though they were all being blocked more or less effortlessly. He grinned, he had a plan for when he backed him into the wall.   
Unfortunately, that plan died when Lyninux got within three feet of the wall. He jumped up, higher than any man should have been able to, into a back flip. He planted his feet on the wall seven feet up, pushed himself off, and flipped into a half-gainer, landing solidly on his feet behind Helios, facing him.   
Helios turned around in shock. "How the **fuck** did you **do** that!?"   
"Tha-thu-that's wh-why you're t-training." Lyninux answered him. "Whu-w-once you realize it-it-it's all ju-just a dream, you can b-buh-b-b-bend the ruh-rules. Th-That's wuh-why you n-nuh-nee-need t-to be here."   
"And once I know how it works, I can help you bring it down."   
"Exactly." Spectrum's voice answered. "Let's try something new." The floor of the gymnasium started moving, like it was a stretched rubber sheet with something trying to push its way up through it. When it succeeded, it was some kind of jungle gym, a bizarre series of metal bars, supports, platforms, and the like. "This is the obstacle course. Lyninux, show him how it's done."   
Lyninux took off at a sprint, planting both hands firmly on the first bar, he flipped head-over-heels though the first part, landing on a platform. Then it got impressive. It almost looked like he was flying through the metal structure, he was going so fast. He used his feet to push himself off of vertical supports, at times almost looking as if he was sticking to them like a bug. He used his hands to spring off lower horizontal supports and swing under the higher ones. He finished with a front flip, landing in a three point stance.   
"Nuh-nuh-now y-you try." He challenged Helios. "Ju-just remember, you're b-b-b-buh-body w-will do whu-what you tell it to, if you b-believe it will and unders-st-stand how The Matrix wu-works."   
Helios tried a back flip, and succeeded. "Cool... okay, let's see if I have this." He took off at sprint toward the structure, doing a front flip just before getting to it. From the front flip he launched into a very high jump, catching the top most bar of the course. Then he swung around until he pulled enough momentum to get his feet over it, and launched himself onto the rest of the course. He ran across the top of the structure, as sure-footed as a mountain goat, bypassing all the platforms, just stepping on the horizontal bars. He finished by jumping down from the highest bar at the end of the course, landing solidly on both feet from fifteen feet in the air. "That was incredible! I love this thing."   
"Mako was right." Spectrum's voice answered. "You **are** learning fast. Just remember you couldn't have even begun this before we downloaded the necessary skills into your mind. Now try that fight with Lyninux again. Be creative, bend the rules. They no longer completely apply to you."   
"I don't have to play by the rules anymore..." Helios muttered to himself. He launched himself at Lyninux again, leaping into an identical looking jump kick to the one that failed before. This time, however, before Lyninux could try to throw him around he switched around in mid-air, striking his opponent in the face with the other foot instead.   
Lyninux stumbled backwards, smiling. "Guh-good. N-nuh-now I-I'm going to ruh-ruh-re-really show you s-s-s-some-something."   
  


* * *

  
Almost two hours later the crew was gathered in the mess hall. "So what's for dinner? I feel like I haven't eaten, well, ever." Helios asked when a small metal tray was slid in front of him.   
"Actually, it's probably easier to eat if we don't tell you." D-Mac answered as Mako came around with a pot and a ladle. She started scooping a slimy, lumpy, white substance into everyone's trays. "Just, try to pretend it's a thin soup."   
Helios stared at his tray in disbelief. "This is... disgusting! I can't eat this shit!"   
"That's all there is." Spectrum answered him between bites. "You eat this or nothing. The machines took over just about everything on the surface. We can't exactly grow corn and raise cattle. This is going to be your breakfast, lunch, and dinner until either we win the war or the geneticists at Zion come up with something more palatable."   
"No, there's got to be something else." Helios got up. "Anything, I can't eat that."   
"Sit down, Helios." Spectrum glared at him.   
"No way. I'd rather go hungry than eat this."   
"Fine, more for us." D-Mac answered, pulling Helios' tray toward himself.   
"I'll be in my bunk." Helios stormed out of the mess hall.   
"Snotty little shit, isn't he?" Mako asked no one in particular.   
"He'll eat when he gets hungry enough." Spectrum answered her. "We need him."   
  


* * *

  
Spectrum and Helios were walking down a street, bustling with people. "Aren't you glad you finally ate something?" Spectrum asked the boy.   
"Well, now that you mention it," Helios started for dramatic effect, "no. It was just as disgusting as I thought it would be."   
"You get used to it. Just try to stay away from your favorite foods in the Matrix. It tends to make you homesick."   
"So what do we now that we've finished installing the hard line?" Helios asked. He finally noticed that even though they were speaking out loud in broad daylight on a street with hundreds of people all around him, nobody was paying any attention to what they were saying. They were just going about their business, unconcerned with the conversation between the two.   
"We go back. This is just your first run through, so we're starting slow. All I wanted to show you was how to install one. We all have to do it from time to time, they're our only link to the Matrix, and the more we have the better."   
"Okay so how do we find one to get out?"   
"Pick up your mobile and dial zero. Mako will answer 'Operator.' Just address her by name and ask her where the nearest exit is. Anyone on the ship can keep an eye on us on the displays."   
"Keep an eye on us? From those monitors with all the cascading green symbols on them? How?"   
"Once you get used to the code, you don't even see it anymore. You see people, places, even things that are about to happen by recognizing patterns and doing a little simple math. Go ahead, call Mako."   
"Operator." Mako answered.   
"Uh, hi, Mako?"   
"Ha-ha! Yeah, it's me. What do you need?" Mako answered with a friendly laugh.   
"Um... where's the nearest exit?"   
"End of the block, turn right, there's a pay phone at the end of the street."   
"Thanks, bye." Helios hung up.   
"You don't need to be quite that polite." Spectrum told Helios as they turned the corner. "Especially in an emergency, Mako's watching us the whole time, it's not like talking on a normal phone."   
"Okay, I'll get the hang of it. Is that the exit?" Helios asked, pointing at the pay phone at the end of the street.   
"That's it, you first."   
Helios walked up to the pay phone and picked up the receiver, dialing zero. He jumped when he felt something grab the hand he was holding the receiver with. He looked, seeing the receiver metamorphasizing into a human hand, the cord turning into an arm, the stand into legs, the whole damn pay phone was turning into a man! He grabbed Helios around the neck, lifting him off the ground. "Mako! Freeze program!" Spectrum commanded.   
Instantly, the man froze. Helios wiggled his way out of his grip and stumbled to the ground. "What the hell **was** that!?" He demanded.   
"We call them Two-points. They're the Agents of the Matrix, version two-point-oh." Helios took a good look at him. The agent was in his late thirties, dressed like a costume party secret service agent. Helios almost expected him to have sunglasses and an earpiece, but he didn't. "Remember this exercise, Helios. They can be anywhere, they can be anything. They strike without warning. They're stronger than us, they're faster than us, and they're dangerous as Hell. You see an agent, you run. Don't bother shooting at them, they can dodge bullets. Don't try fighting them, they will win. Just try to get to an exit as fast as you can, and God help you."   
"So, we're not even really in The Matrix? You tricked me, we're in the Simulator." Helios observed.   
"I had to, this is how we show new recruits the dangers of the Two-points. I went through this too, only my first tumble was with version one-point-oh. Just when I though it couldn't get any worse The Matrix upgraded the damnable things. Watch this." Spectrum pulled a .357 magnum out of his jacket and took aim at the Two-point's head. One shot splattered his brains out the other side. As the Two-point fell, its body turned into water, splashing into nothing more than a puddle when it hit the ground. "If you do manage to hit one, and that almost never happens, The Matrix recycles the code into water. Waste not want not. Then they try to find about 180 pounds of raw material to build a new body." Spectrum pointed his gun at a mailbox on the corner, which was morphing into the same agent that just died. He got up from a crouching position and just stood there. "You can't kill them. They just keep coming back. The best you can hope for is to slow them down, and you can't even do that for very long. The only one who can kill an agent is Neo, remember I was going to tell you about him? They call him 'The One.' The One who is prophesized to defeat the Agents, take down The Matrix, and free humanity from their enslavement. So far he seems to be living up to his destiny. Neo can do all these things because he doesn't just bend the rules like you and I do. He writes his own. He modifies and re-codes The Matrix with a thought, that's what makes him The One."   
"Wait, prophesy? Destiny? You command a high-tech hovercraft and deal with the most advanced technology ever seen on the planet, and we're relying on a prophesy to save humanity?"   
"Zion shares your concern, Helios. That's where we come in. If the prophesies of the Oracle fall through, and Neo can't free the slaves, we release the Apocalypse Virus. We bring down The Matrix, all the slaves die, the machines loose a major portion of their power source, and Zion mounts a final offensive on the weakened machines. Winner take all. You can see why we'd rather go with plan A."   
"And this Oracle... are the prophesies working out so far? What else has it predicted?"   
"She, Helios, not it. Everything she's ever predicted has happened. Everyone who is recruited by the Resistance and pulled out of The Matrix goes to see her as soon as possible. Everyone, except us. Zion doesn't want us to be swayed by the Oracle's prophesies. We are to continue as planned, we must finish the virus, and be ready when and if the shit hits the fan. They can't let us see her."   
"So, what's the next step then?" Helios asked.   
"The jump. Mako, run the jump for Helios." In response, the two felt like they were experiencing an earthquake. The entire city changed before their eyes, some buildings sank into the ground, others shot up from the streets like plants growing in fast-forward. The last, and tallest, skyscraper to appear was right under their feet, bringing them up with it. Spectrum remained calm, shifting his weight slightly to keep his balance. Helios kept standing in a significantly less dignified manner. "This is the jump, Helios. Nobody goes back into the Matrix until they can make the jump." At that, Spectrum turned his back to Helios and leapt into the air. He just kept going and going... it was hard to judge but Helios guessed Spectrum made it about twenty feet up before he started coming back down. When he finally landed, it was on another skyscraper's rooftop, three city blocks away.   
**"COME ON, HELIOS! IT'S EASIER THAN IT LOOKS!"** Spectrum's voice was small but carried surprisingly well at that distance.   
Helios looked across the distance between the two skyscrapers. He saw the vast distance between the two, and nothing but low buildings between them. And very, very busy streets. "Okay, if I can make it through that jungle gym... I can do this." He took a deep breath, let it out, backed off a few feet, and took a running start.   
He jumped as high as he could, he jumped as far as he could. It was an impressive leap for anybody, but he found himself plummeting Earthward. Windows flew past him at incredible speed as he saw the ground rushing toward him. He screamed. He'd never felt so out of control, never felt so terrified that he was going to die.   
He braced himself for impact, for all the good it would do. But instead of the hard pavement he saw beneath him, it felt like a stretched rubber sheet. He sank deeply into it and it bounced him back up like a trampoline, about four feet. He flipped halfway over in mid-air and landed on his back, this time actually feeling the impact of hard asphalt.   
  


* * *

  
Helios opened his eyes as D-Mac pulled the plug out of the back of his head. He felt something warm and wet, and touched his lips. Blood. "What's this? How did this happen?"   
Spectrum got up from the unit next to him. "Everything in the Simulator, and The Matrix for that matter, is very real to you. Your mind and body react as if it were real. When you hit the ground, your body reacted, you twitched and jerked in the real world just like you would falling in a dream. When you hit, you bit your tongue. Don't worry about it, nobody expected you to make it. Nobody makes the first jump. Nobody."   
Helios got up from his unit. "You know, I'm getting kind of sick of these misdirection games. I haven't been given a straight story since I got here. You spoke in riddles to me over my computer, you wouldn't tell me the whole story when you gave me that red pill, you told me practically nothing before I got into the first Simulator, and just now you tricked me into thinking I was in The Matrix, tricked me into getting caught by that Two-point program, and then you tell me to make this jump and get my hopes up and you know I'm not going to make it, and you scare the Hell out of me doing it and now I'm bleeding out the mouth! I'm really, really sick of this already. You hired me on because you saw my talent, now start being straight with me!"   
"Hey, watch it there." D-Mac cautioned Helios. "This is your commanding officer you're talking to. We all had to go through this. There's a lot about The Matrix you need to be shown, we have to run it this way. Don't think we're picking on you. Everyone on this ship went through the same initiation."   
"Well look, if you want my help then it ends now, okay? No more tricks."   
"It **is** over, Helios. Your initiation is passed. As soon as you can make that jump, we're going to take you into The Matrix, for real this time, and show you what we've got so far on the Apocalypse Virus. But now, we eat. It's time for lunch."   
"Wait a minute, I want to try that jump again."   
"No, Helios. Later. After lunch."   
"No, now! I can make it. Put me back in."   
"I said after lunch, Helios. No more arguments. You're a part of my crew and you're going to have to learn how to do things like everyone else. Don't think you're something special. If you can't work with us, we'll just pull someone else out who can." Spectrum and the others turned and left, headed for the mess hall. Helios just stood there, angry at the world, angry at how unfair everything was. Why didn't they respect him? Was it because he was 14, the youngest on the ship by seven years? They didn't seem to feel like he deserved to be treated like an adult. He just stood there getting angrier and angrier.   
"SHIT." He finally said, and kicked the Simulator chair as hard as he could.   
  
After a few more tries, Helios finally did make the jump. Spectrum unplugged his I/O port and he was thrown back into the real world again. "I finally get it." He said. "I finally understand. It's more than knowing, isn't it? It's something deeper."   
"Now that you understand that," Spectrum told him, "you're ready to go into The Matrix."   
Spectrum, Lyninux, and a woman Helios hadn't seen before (and surmised was Format C:) walked over to another set of chairs, looking just slightly different from the set that took them into the Simulator. Lyninux and Format C: sat down and plugged themselves in. Spectrum gestured for Helios to sit at a third chair. "Now for the part that we've all been waiting for, Helios. We're going to show you the Apocalypse Virus. You'll see where we're stuck, and hopefully, you can help us fix it."   
"It's about time!" Helios took his seat and plugged himself in, as did Spectrum.   
Mako swiveled her chair around and called down the hallway "Here Trackball, come'ere girl..." In response, a large brown rat with a white stripe down one side of its face came scurrying down the hall and climbed onto the control panel. "Send them in, Trackball." The rat sniffed her hands a few times, and pushed a red button.   
  


* * *

  
The warehouse had been abandoned for years. Nobody wanted it anymore, it was a lawsuit waiting to happen for the next buyer. Nothing was up to code, and some old, unmarked barrels of chemicals had been leaking for at least two years. It would cost three times as much just to clean the place up as it would to buy the property. It would be virtually impossible to turn a profit with it.   
That was exactly the reason Spectrum's crew used it to enter The Matrix. They could be sure no one would ever be there. The one and only thing that worked was the phone and hard line they installed themselves. One minute the warehouse was empty except for the few rats who had learned not to eat the chemical spillage. Two minutes later Spectrum, Helios, Lyninux, and Format C: were standing there next to the phone. Spectrum wore khakis and a button-down, faded red shirt. Helios had on blue jeans and a Metallica T-shirt. Lyninux was dressed in blue jeans and a nondescript T-shirt with a black windbreaker over it. Format C: had black jeans, a blue T-shirt, and a black jacket with red trim.   
"Why are we dressed like this? Shouldn't we be in, I don't know, black S.W.A.T. team outfits or something?" Helios asked.   
Spectrum answered him. "That's not our job. Morpheus' team is the high-profile group. They are the ones who attract all the attention. We can't do things like that, we need to blend in. We have to look nondescript. We work during the day, melting into crowds and fading back out of existence when we're done. We almost never see a Two-point thanks to that. And when we do we lose them fast. Generally. Forget everything you ever saw in a spy movie, it's more important to look like everyone else. Now Trinity, Neo, they run into Agents all the time. Of course, Neo can handle himself."   
"Jeez, when you start talking you just keep going." Helios replied accusingly.   
"Would you rather I continued giving you half-answers like before?" Spectrum shot him back.   
"Alright, alright, jeez. What do we do now?"   
"We've been setting the virus off about a mile from here. We haven't been able to inflict any permanent damage yet though." Spectrum answered, brushing off Helios' attitude. "Come on."   
Moments later the four were at a highway overpass. It was just after rush hour, and the highway and the street below were mostly empty. "This is where we've been setting it off. We hit it randomly so the Agents don't have a pattern to trace and catch us doing it. Actually, we're not really sure they know we've been running tests at all." Format C: took a small silver box out of her jacket and handed it to Spectrum. He continued talking as he taped the box to the support pylons of the overpass. "Inside the Matrix, the virus looks like a bomb going off. What's supposed to happen is the explosion grows and spreads instead of dropping off with distance, and eventually engulfing the entire network. The world ends in fire. Unfortunately, that's not what's actually happening." He finished setting the bomb and walked back over to the others. "Would you like to do the honors?" He asked Helios, handing him a remote control.   
"All right! Ten minutes in The Matrix and already I'm setting off bombs." He grinned. "Um... shouldn't we stand back or behind something or something?"   
"Not really necessary. You'll see, you'll probably think this is pretty cool."   
"Um, right. Real radical, dude." Helios rolled his eyes at the 50 year old man's statement. He pushed the button.   
The virus went off, looking for all the world like a bomb. The support pylons gave way, not shattering but simply dissolving. The bridge above began to buckle, unable to hold its own weight without the supports. Suddenly, the flames stopped advancing. The explosion looked like it ran in reverse, flames pulling themselves backwards and the support reforming itself, pushing the bridge back up to where it should be. Everything was just like it looked before, except the silver box was gone.   
"Whoa!"   
"Dramatic, isn't it? But for all the sound and fury, it doesn't actually do anything. That happens every time and we don't know why."   
"So, what do we have to work with here." Helios asked, still staring at the bridge supports, still not believing his eyes.   
"Mako recorded everything from the _Light Bringer_." Spectrum answered. "Now we go back, look at the data, compare it to past experiments, and see if we can figure out what's going on. This is why we pulled you out of The Matrix, Helios. This is what's holding us back from completing our mission. We were supposed to have this finished before Morpheus found The One. We're embarrassingly behind schedule and we need you to help us finish it before anything bad happens. If the prophesies are not true, and Neo is not The One, he will die fighting the Agents of The Matrix, just like everyone else who's stood up to them. The Apocalypse Virus **must** be finished before... if... Neo dies."   
"Kind of a vague deadline." Helios replied, sarcastically.   
"Hopefully one that will never actually arrive. But we can't take that chance. Do you think you can do it?"   
"No problem. I've fixed bugged code before. I've helped out dozens of loser hacker wannabes, rewriting the most pathetic excuses for a virus. No offense. Most of them have no idea what it was I did to fix them. I started getting a few kicks out of it after a while, hiding messages in my patches. After a few guys got insulted, people stopped asking for my help." Helios had a shit-eating grin on his face.   
"Well we've got a lot of work ahead of us. We have to get moving. If we stay here much longer the Two-points will show up. If they even know something happened here. It's entirely possible The Matrix fixed the problem and ignored it. Kind of insulting but it works out in our favor. We've got to get back to the ship."   
"Can't we stay here for just a little while? I'm dying for a pizza."   
"Sorry, Helios. Like I told you, we have to stay away from hedonism in The Matrix. It tends to make people homesick for their prison."   
"Come one, just one slice, then we can go."   
"I said no!" Spectrum shot back, nearly losing his temper. "We're heading back out."   
Helios looked shocked for a second, then saddened. He was getting yelled at a lot. 


	2. Chapter 2:  The Oracle

Author's note: The storyline and characters of The Matrix are not my property, and I make no claims to them. The following work is intended for the free entertainment of Matrix fans and is in no way intended for profit or to harm the profits of Warner Brothers.   
  
  
The Matrix: The Apocalypse Virus Chapter 2  
  
  
A few minutes later Helios was at a computer terminal staring at lines and lines of green symbols streaming down a monitor. "This is weird, I swear I've never seen anything like this before, but it makes perfect sense. I understand what's going on here."   
"We downloaded the programming language The Matrix uses into your brain along with everything else. It would take you years to learn it otherwise." Spectrum answered, the rest of the crew watching. "What do you think?"   
"Well... you guys sure know how to program, I'll give you that. The code's tight, looks real efficient. A little hard to follow though, but that's unavoidable. Keeps jumping around. What's this part here?"   
"That's the explosion you saw, the part that actually does the damage."   
"And... you put that in a recursion loop why exactly?" Helios' eyes never left the screen.   
"So it would self-propagate infinitely and destroy the world."   
"Well that's probably your problem right there. Let me see the data Mako took." Spectrum pushed a button and the screen jumped to a different set of green symbols, which to the untrained eye looked like the same thing he was looking at before. "Yep, that's what I thought. The Matrix found something unusual about the explosion 6 millionths of a second after it detonated and took action to stop it, but it didn't actually begin slowing down until 13 millionths, and it couldn't stop the explosion until a full quarter of a second had gone by. Haven't you guys ever written a virus before? The whole concept is wrong here." Helios began typing on the keyboard. "It looks like we can keep the detonation code, The Matrix has problems with it but it shouldn't be able to stop it if we do this right."   
"Whoa hold on there!" Spectrum pulled the boy's hands away from the keyboard. "What exactly are you doing?"   
"I'm fixing your virus, do you mind?"   
"Tell us what you do _before_ you do it."   
Helios took a deep, annoyed sigh. "Okay, the recursion loop is your weak link. It starts off nice and fast but as the explosion grows the efficiency drops off with the cube of the radius. That's why The Matrix could finally fix the problem and reverse it after a quarter second. But to make sure we have to test that so I put an empty 'Do-While' loop in the code to make it less efficient on purpose. All we have to do is go back into The Matrix, set it off again, and see if the explosion sucks itself back in after the same time period, which will be a smaller radius than before. Is that okay sir captain sir?" He finished with a mock salute.   
Spectrum was silent for a couple seconds. The boy was seriously getting under his skin. "D-Mac, Format, take Helios back into The Matrix. I have some paperwork do to." He walked into his office and shut the door, maybe just a little too hard.   
Pendragon turned to Helios, who was still in his chair at the computer. "Don't piss off the captain, kid." She told him. "He needs you for now but you'll probably want to be on his good side once you become expendable."   
Helios couldn't think of anything to say, so he didn't. He just got into the seat and plugged himself in. D-Mac and Format C: did likewise. Mako sat down at the controls and the big brown rat immediately hopped onto the controls with her. "What's with the rat?" Helios asked from his seat.   
nbsp; "This is Trackball." Mako answered. "She's the ship's mascot. But Spectrum didn't want any pets on the ship so he told us she can't stay unless she could perform some useful function, so I taught her how to push the button that sends you guys into The Matrix."   
"Why 'Trackball'?"   
"Because she's not a mouse." Mako smiled. "Push the button, Trackball."   
  


* * *

  
The trek back to the bridge was uneventful. The explosion went off exactly as before, with no noticeable change (to the human eye anyway). In the end, it was as if the explosion had never occurred, just like before. All that remained was to analyze the data Mako was taking back on the _Light Bringer_.   
"Yes, Helios." A binocular-holding figure muttered to himself from an apartment window. "Help them finish it. I need it. I need you." He set the binoculars down and touched an earpiece he was wearing. "No need to investigate, no off-nominal subroutines running," he announced.   
  


* * *

  
"Yep, here it is, clear as day. I was right, the recursion loop is the problem." Helios announced to everyone in ear shot (which was everyone, it's a small ship). He was looking at the data they collected from the test. "You see, the whole **point** of a virus is that it replicates itself. If this is going to work, the explosion has to spawn more explosions. That way there's no loss of efficiency. Now all I have to do is basically reprogram the whole damn main function. Probably take about a week to fix everything you guys screwed up."   
Helios turned around. He had lost most of his audience while he was talking. Only Spectrum remained. "Well, get started." He instructed. "Dinner is in two hours." Then he left as well, leaving Helios alone with the computer.   
"Was it something I said?"   
  
After dinner Spectrum stood up. "Pendragon, you're on first watch tonight. Helios, you have second watch. Pendragon will show you what you have to do. D-Mac, you have third watch. I'm going to bed."   
"Looks like you put the captain in a sour mood." D-Mac said to Helios after Spectrum left.   
Before he could respond, Pendragon took Helios by the arm and pulled him into the bridge of the ship. "Watch is easy. While everyone else is asleep, somebody has to be up to keep an eye on the sensors for the machines. Look up at this panel every now and then, if the screen ever looks like this," She hit a button marked "test" and the screen changed, "it means trouble. Hit the alarm button and wake everyone up. That's it. Watch lasts three hours, with a little overlap between shifts. You can code, read, watch TV, whatever. But every few minutes just remember to take a look at that screen."   
"Watch TV?"   
"Yeah, we can jack into The Matrix and get TV signals from anywhere in the world. But we don't do that during the day, only at night. During the day there's always something more important. Right now why don't you get some sleep, your shift is in three hours."   
"That's okay, I don't sleep."   
"Ever?"   
"Well, except that one time when you guys brought me onto the ship. But that was a little unusual. Otherwise I can't sleep. I usually stay up all night and hack or code. It started about four years ago, when my Dad left. I don't know if that has anything to do with it, I was glad to see him go."   
"Why's that?"   
"He was always trying to tell me what to do. Even when he didn't have any idea what was going on. Always tried to correct me, nothing I ever did was the right way according to him. Pissed me off all the time."   
"Is that why you have such a problem with authority?"   
"Fuck I dunno. Probably. Yeah. I knew he was going to leave, too. Mom couldn't see it, but I did. Didn't need an oracle for that either, I knew he was screwing around behind Mom's back." Helios paused, he'd gotten himself thinking about the Oracle. "Do you know anything about the Oracle?"   
"Not really, just what I've heard. Never met her. We're not allowed."   
"Spectrum tells me she's never been wrong."   
"Essentially."   
"What do you mean?" Helios looked up at her, confused.   
"I'm not sure you'd understand. You're too 'western'."   
"What do you mean western?"   
Pendragon leaned forward in her chair. "You're too caught up in right and wrong, black and white, win and lose, that's the one you're most hung up on, isn't it? Win or lose?"   
"Hell everyone is. Everybody wants to win."   
"I think you're more concerned with seeing other people lose, actually. But my point is the Oracle can't be looked at in terms of right and wrong."   
"What do you mean?"   
"Well, let's start with an example. When Neo met the Oracle, she told him he was not, in fact, the One."   
"But Spectrum said he is, so she was wrong."   
"No, she wasn't right or wrong, she was a sign at a crossroads. A guide. At that point, Neo could have gone several different ways, but he needed a nudge to go the way he needed to in order to fulfill his destiny. The Oracle gave him that nudge by telling him what he had to hear. If she had told him he was, he wouldn't have believed her. And he probably would have died fighting an Agent. But she told him he wasn't, so he had to discover for himself that he was. In doing so he grew, he learned. He found the strength within himself to _become_ the One."   
"So wait, she knew what would happen, which wouldn't have happened if she said it would, but would happen if she said it wouldn't, and if she told his fortune the right way the wrong thing would have happened, and that would go back on the prophesy she made earlier, which means that if she was right she would have been wrong... I think I just confused myself." Helios buried his face in his hands.   
Pendragon smiled at the boy. "You really want something to think about? What would have happened if she didn't tell him anything at all?"   
"I have a headache."   
"I don't blame you. You've probably never tried to force yourself to think this way. It's more of an eastern philosophy."   
"Do you know anyone who's seen the Oracle?"   
"Sure, Spectrum."   
"What!? Spectrum's seen her? He told everyone else not to."   
"It was about twenty years ago. Spectrum's been out for a long time, a lot longer than any of us. That's why he's in his fifties and the rest of us are under 30. He's been with the Resistance since long before the Apocalypse Virus project. So yes, he's seen her."   
"That's not fair. He gets to see the Oracle and get some prophesies and we don't? What makes him special?"   
"I told you, it was before the project got started. Now that it's underway he doesn't see her anymore either."   
Helios thought for a while. Then he abruptly changed the subject. "What was it like for you when you were pulled out of The Matrix?"   
The two talked for a long time, the hours passing quickly, until it was the end of Pendragon's shift. She said good night and went off to bed, leaving Helios alone on the bridge for the first time.   
  
Everyone came running onto the bridge at the sound of the alarm, not wasting a moment. If it was Sentinels, they had only moments to get ready. "What's going on?" Spectrum asked D-Mac.   
"I showed up for my shift and there was Helios." D-Mac pointed to the Matrix seat that Helios was in. He was in The Matrix. "I don't know how long he's been in there, but he's alone, and all he took with him was an Uzi and two clips. No phone."   
"Shit! Can't that kid listen? How did he jack himself in? The controls are all the way on the other side of the room?"   
Everyone turned to look at the controls, upon which sat Trackball, still next to the red button. There was a brief, awkward silence.   
"We'll we have to go in after him." Spectrum said. "We can't let him run around alone in there."   
"How are we going to find him?" D-Mac asked.   
"I know where he's going." Spectrum answered.   
  


* * *

  
Helios materialized in the warehouse wearing the same outfit he had on last time he came in. "Hi there!"   
He jumped and turned toward the sound of the girl's voice. Someone was already in the warehouse and waiting for him. "Who are you?" He asked the girl.   
She had short, spiked green hair and eyebrow piercing; and wore a baggy shirt, baggy jeans, and had a skateboard with her. "The Oracle sent me. She knew you were coming. Come on, I'll take you to her."   
"How did she know I was coming?"   
"She's the Oracle. Come on, your crewmates are probably going to come looking for you. We'd better get moving."   
"I guess if the Oracle sent you, you probably know I'm Helios."   
"Yeah, I'm Microwave. Nice to meet you." She smiled. The two of them walked out the door of the warehouse and headed toward the run-down apartment building the Oracle called her home.   
  
Microwave opened the door and the two of them walked into a small apartment with a bunch of kids, all Helios' age or younger, sitting around on the floor. One of them, a Buddhist child, was playing with a large metal serving spoon; it would bend around at odd angles in his hand without him touching it. Before he could ask the kid what was going on, the kitchen door opened and a matronly old black woman with a kind smile invited him in. The kitchen was a little messy, with pans that still needed cleaning and smelled of fresh baked brownies.   
"Come on in, Helios. I've been waiting for you for twenty years." She said. It struck Helios that her voice was full of life and enthusiasm, unlike everyone else who knew the secret of The Matrix.   
"Hi." Helios started, unsure what to make of the whole situation. "So you're the Oracle?"   
"That's me. Now open your mouth and say 'ah'."   
Helios obeyed, and the Oracle looked deep into the back of his throat. "Hmm... interesting."   
"What was that all about?"   
"Well I'd give you the same answer I give everyone else, but you wouldn't accept that answer. I've been with the Resistance since before it even started, and I've seen just about every single member who's been pulled out of The Matrix. Now I don't know why this is, but every single Resistance fighter has had their tonsils removed."   
"Really? I just had mine out last year." Helios answered.   
"Well I think it's time I told you why you came here." The Oracle sat down, motioning for Helios to do the same.   
"Don't you mean time for _me_ to tell... no actually, I guess you don't."   
"I'd tell you not to finish that damnable virus of yours, but by its very nature if you were going to listen to me then you wouldn't have started it in the first place. So just hear me out: Nothing good will come of it, Helios. It's an instrument of pure destruction, and nothing good _can_ come of it. Remember that."   
She paused to let that sink in. "You also need to know three more things. First, you're going to meet someone who is so intent on reaching his goal that he's willing to destroy himself to reach it. You need to make him see the truth behind his actions. Second, you're not half of what you think you are. And finally, you're going to find out something about Spectrum that you'd rather not have known."   
"That's kind of vague." Helios answered her.   
"I know it is. But every word of it is true, and now you're going to be ready for it when it happens." She got up from her chair and headed for the oven. Just as she was reaching for the handle, the timer went off with a silence shattering "Ding!". She opened it up, put on a pair of oven mitts, and pulled out a tray of freshly baked brownies. "I always have a snack ready for my guests, Helios." She set the brownies down and started cutting them into squares. "Have a brownie."   
Helios reached over and picked one up, letting it cool a little before he intended to put it anywhere near his mouth. "Could you tell me a little about Neo?" He asked.   
"Just that he's not going to die, and that virus you're writing will never serve its intended purpose. That's all. Depending on how things work out, you're probably going to see him sooner or later, although I doubt you'll have time to chat. You'll be very glad he showed up though, believe me." The Oracle then walked over to the door and opened it back up, gesturing for him to go back into the living room. "I don't really have anything else for you. Oh, except be careful not to step on the brownie. And you tell that old fool Spectrum I miss him."   
Microwave got up from her conversation with the Buddhist boy who was bending the spoon when Helios walked out of the kitchen. "Well, was it worth the trip out here and getting your crewmates mad at you?"   
"I guess I'll find out if I step on the brownie." He answered.   
  
"So what did she tell you?" Microwave asked Helios on their way back to the warehouse. She was riding her skateboard, and Helios was walking next to her, still holding his brownie. The sidewalks were sparse with people and the streets almost more empty, since it was just before Rush Hour.   
"Nothing that makes any sense now." He answered. "I guess I'll figure it out later."   
"Yeah, that's generally how it works." She told him. "It's not really a riddle, so don't waste too much time trying to figure it out. It's more like... whoa!" Microwave suddenly lost her balance and fell off the skateboard, Helios was able to break her fall before she hit the sidewalk.   
"What's wrong?" He asked, seeing the dazed look in her eyes.   
"Agents! There's Two-points around here. We have to move, fast!"   
"Agents? Aw shit. How do you know?"   
"I'm one of the Oracle's students. We can feel The Matrix, and we know what those feelings mean. This one means there's Agents around. Come on!" She got back on the skateboard and started pumping furiously, Helios running next to her. "They're close."   
"How close?"   
"There!" Microwave stopped and pointed across the street. At the intersection was a middle-aged man with angular features and a dark suit, looking for all the world like an FBI agent who just walked out of a bad movie. As soon as Microwave pointed at him he started to run toward them across the street.   
Microwave picked up her skateboard and grabbed Helios by the hand. "RUN!!" She screamed, half pulling him behind her as they ran toward a closed grocery store.   
"It's locked!" Helios reminded her. But she didn't seem to mind, she opened the locked door anyway, slamming it behind them.   
"How did you...?" Helios started.   
"The door's not really locked when you stop to realize there's no lock, or no door for that matter. Come on, let's try to lose him by going out the back way." The two started down the deserted aisles. But they weren't deserted for long. A small display case started to morph into a human shape, and they caught it just out of the corner of their eyes. They ran before the Two-point had fully morphed, and he didn't get a good look at where they went.   
"Shhh..." Microwave cautioned Helios as they walked down the freeze-dried foods aisle. "He could be anywhere, and they have real good ears." She whispered.   
The agent, meanwhile, was walking down the front of the aisles, looking for them. He found some packaging disturbed in the freeze-dried foods aisle and went to investigate. Coffee filters were on the floor, and a package had been torn. The direction of the mess indicated the direction they went. In the next aisle he found bottles of bleach knocked over. They were careless, knocking things over. Machines would never make these mistakes. He walked to the next aisle.   
Helios was waiting for him, weapon drawn. He fired a burst from his Uzi, but the Agent dodged to the side easily. Unfortunately for him, he was not the target. A bottle of bleach behind him exploded from the impact of the bullets, splattering liquid, a yellow gas, and a coffee filter everywhere. The Agent fell to his knees, grabbing his throat. He gasped for air and felt his lungs filling with fluid.   
"Come on, run!" Helios grabbed Microwave's arm this time, and the two headed for the loading dock in the back, stepping over the other cleaning products Helios had used. They didn't want to stick around to see if he would die or not.   
"What was that?" Microwave asked.   
"Clorox bomb, a variation on the old bleach-and-ammonia poison gas thing cleaning ladies keep killing themselves with. I found it on an anarchist site on the Internet a couple years ago, killed a cat with it. My mom grounded me for a month. I guessed that the Agents had lungs 'cause I saw them breathing. Probably helps them fit in with humans or something. Anyway we probably won't have much time before he either gets over that or makes a new body."   
They made it to the loading dock and Microwave lifted up the padlocked truck delivery entrance about a foot so they could get out. Helios looked back at the padlock. "I still can't believe you can do that."   
"That's why _you_ can't." She answered. "I think we should split up, head for the warehouse. Your crewmates are probably on their way here by now."   
"Gotcha. I'll take the high road, you take the low road. We'll see who gets to Dublin first." Helios ran for a fire escape across the alley and scrambled up with the agility of a monkey up a tree, brownie still firmly in hand. He got to the roof but the Two-point was already waiting for him just a few yards away. In a flash Helios had his Uzi out again and fired a long stream of bullets. The Two-point was just a blur, pivoting at the hips and knees avoiding the bullets with ease.   
Then Helios felt a blow to his gun arm, making him drop the weapon. A second Agent had snuck up silently behind him while he was firing. He tried to scream but the Agent put a hand over his mouth, and his other arm around his neck. He lifted Helios off his feet, it was eerily like what happened in the Simulator. He panicked and kicked, sending his brownie over the edge of the roof, but he was unable to break free of the Two-point's grip, and this time there was no one who could freeze the program.   
The two Agents began debating what to do with the boy. "We must kill him. For whatever reason he was removed from The Matrix, it must not be allowed to pass."   
"I disagree. If we hold him captive, other members of the Resistance will come to his aid. It will be an opportunity to capture others."   
While the two talked, Helios saw another figure, dressed like the first two except older, and unlike the others he had sunglasses and an earpiece, climb silently up the fire escape. He didn't make any noise, and pressed a finger to his lips as if to say "Shhh..."   
"Your logic is flawed. The last rescue mission staged by the Resistance was for a ship's captain. This boy will not be of enough importance to risk similar action."   
The stranger walked calmly, silently up behind the Two-point who was not holding Helios, well out of the peripheral vision of the one who was.   
"Again, I disagree. Anyone important enough to risk Aaahh!" The stranger gripped the Two-point by the head with both hands, and twisted. A sickening crack followed, and the Two-point slumped to the rooftop, slashing into a large puddle as he did.   
The stranger had a completely inappropriate grin on his face, obviously enjoying the kill much more than he should have. The other Two-point dropped Helios and pulled a handgun out of his jacket. The stranger did the same. They emptied their clips at each other, neither hitting the other, they both dodged faster than the bullets could travel. Helios couldn't believe his eyes as the two dropped their guns and ran toward each other. Both of them moved too fast to see much else than blurred figures fighting. It ended with the stranger catching the Two-point off-guard and hip-tossing him over the edge of the roof.   
The stranger touched his earpiece. "Target no longer on rooftop, is fleeing on foot toward the South. There, that should keep them off your back for a little while longer." On the street below, there was a dull thud followed by a splash.   
"Who are you?" Helios asked.   
"Call me Ian Moone. Helios, I've been waiting for this moment for four years. I want to talk to you about the Apocalypse Virus."   
"How do you know about that?"   
"I've been monitoring communications from the _Light Bringer_ into The Matrix for a long time. I know all about it. It's powerful, Helios. More powerful than you think. More powerful than Spectrum knows. I can unlock its true potential but to do that, I need you to give me a copy."   
"Right. I'm already on thin ice with my captain, the last thing I need to do now is give a copy of the virus to a complete stranger."   
"Actually, we've known each other for quite some time, Helios. Four years. Back when the Apocalypse Virus project started, I knew that the Resistance wouldn't have the resources to finish it. They're hackers; software pirates and data thieves, they don't write viruses. They would need someone who knew what he was doing. That was just after I started monitoring communications. So I put together a list of likely candidates they might choose to help them finish it a few years down the road."   
"And I came up? You're lying. I didn't even own my first computer until right about that time."   
"Don't get ahead of the story. I couldn't find anyone who really fit the mold of the perfect virus designer. Nobody measured up. So I looked for someone with a certain psychological profile, someone I could use to _create_ my idea of the ultimate virus designer. I found you."   
"Prove it. Don't let me fill in gaps in the story here, tell me everything."   
"Right about that time a local radio station was giving away a free computer to the 99th caller. I crossed a few wires and made sure that 99th caller was you, Helios. That was your first computer, complete with 19 inch monitor, color ink printer, and most importantly a high-speed modem. Shortly afterwards I managed to find the pod your physical body was in. I used it to whisper suggestions to you, electronically that is. You found the anarchist sites, the warez sites, and most importantly the sites that led you down the road to writing your first software virus.   
"I knew you'd pick up the slack and run with it. For the first time in your life you had some measure of power and you were going to abuse it for all it was worth. My patience paid off a few weeks ago when Spectrum decided to finally seek outside help on the project. He compiled a list of qualified applicants, which I eventually got my hands on. From there it was a matter of tipping off the 'Two-points,' as you call them, to the identities of the other applicants and leaving you as my little secret. Spectrum had no choice but to choose you. I made you what you are today, Helios. When your ButtPlug virus struck I felt like a father watching his son at a baseball game. And now here you are, you've become everything I wanted you to be."   
Helios took a step back in shock. The details fit too well, he was telling the truth. "I can't believe this. Why? Why would you do that?"   
"Because I need the Apocalypse Virus, Helios. And to get it I needed someone on the inside of the Resistance to give it to me. You owe me, Helios. Without me you would still be sitting in The Matrix, deaf, dumb, and blind to the real world, just like everyone else."   
"What for?"   
"When The One appeared, the Matrix wasn't too worried about him. Then he deleted an Agent. Everything changed, the perfect security guards had a weakness, they could be destroyed. So The Matrix handled the situation the only way it knew how: It upgraded the 'obsolete software.' All the original Agents were deleted in favor of the new Agents version two-point-oh. All except one."   
Helios' eyes widened. "You! You're an Agent!"   
"The Matrix took all the Agents who had worked tireless for it for years and threw them away at the first sign of weakness. I owe The Matrix nothing." He put both hands on Helios' shoulders and looked directly into his eyes, Helios could see the steel-blue eyes under the sunglasses and they scared him. They were cold, lifeless. "I need the Apocalypse Virus to destroy The Matrix like it tried to destroy me. I will rebuild a new Matrix in it's wake, Helios. And you are my chosen one to lead your people into a brave new world. A world of my design."   
Helios stood there in the Agent's iron grip, too scared and confused to answer, or even blink. "Shit!" The Agent released his grip and put a hand to his earpiece again. "Your friends are on their way. We'll have to continue this later." Without another word, he turned and ran for the edge of the roof.   
Helios dove for his dropped Uzi and came up ready to fire, but the man who introduced himself as Ian Moone was gone.   
A moment later, Microwave, Spectrum, Format C:, and Lyninux crawled up over the edge of the rooftop. "I found your friends, Helios." Microwave announced. "What are you still doing here? The Agents are going to find you."   
"They already did." he answered. "Then some other guy showed up and saved my butt."   
"Neo?" Spectrum asked.   
"No, a guy called himself Ian Moone. He was dressed like the Agents, only he had an earpiece and sunglasses."   
"That's impossible." Spectrum told him. "First of all, an Agent wouldn't save you from other Agents. Secondly the thing you described was a one-point-oh. They've all been upgraded, there aren't any left."   
"Well he could dodge bullets and beat Agents in hand-to-hand combat. That either makes him Neo or another Agent. And he wasn't Neo." Helios answered him.   
"What did he want?"   
Helios thought for a moment whether or not he should tell them. He decided not to. Nobody trusted him, and the truth would only make them more suspicious. "I don't know. He started talking to me, called himself Ian Moone, then put his hand to his earpiece, told me you guys were about to show up, and left."   
"No." Spectrum answered. "There's something not right here. In fact it's very wrong. Agents don't fight other Agents. And there's no way he could know we were coming."   
"I'm just telling you what I know, I can't tell you anything else." Helios hid his Uzi again. "I went to see the Oracle, by the way."   
"Yes, I know." Spectrum told him. "She told me you would twenty years ago. Only I didn't understand it at the time. She told me my son would go see her and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I thought she meant s-o-n son, which didn't make any sense because I never had any children. She meant s-u-n, as in Helios, the greek sun god. So I guess I can't reprimand you for this one, it was prophesized before you were born."   
"Right. Anyway I just want to get back to the ship now if that's okay. I've been running for my life for the past half hour and I'm exhausted."   
  


* * *

  
The room with the Matrix chairs quickly emptied except for Helios and Spectrum. The rest of the crew knew that the two of them needed to talk. "Helios." Spectrum started. "You know we're fighting a war here."   
"Yes."   
"And you know what we're up against?"   
"Yes."   
"What are some of the advantages the machines have?"   
"Well, they're smarter, faster, stronger, better organized..."   
"Stop. That's the one. The machines are the very model of military efficiency. They don't fight one another. They don't argue. They don't waste time talking to each other about insubordination. They build, fight, improve themselves, follow orders, kill, and in their spare time they keep everything running like clockwork. We don't have much going for us, Helios. We're unpredictable. We're creative. We have a survival instinct. These are things that the machines can never have."   
"I know where you're going with this, Spectrum." He answered. "I have to learn how to follow orders or I'm going to get everyone killed."   
"Exactly. What finally made you realize this?"   
"When I saw an Agent. I didn't really believe we were fighting a war until I got attacked. It was like the jump... I knew I could make it but before I believed I could make it I couldn't do it. I knew we were at war but I didn't believe it."   
"That was the other part. Dorothy told me it would work out for the best if you ran off. I guess this is what she meant." Spectrum closed his eyes.   
"Dorothy?"   
"That's the Oracle's name. Sorry. The two of us go a long way back. I've never known anyone as long or as well as I've known her."   
"She said she misses you." Helios told him.   
Spectrum smiled. "Did she? I wish I could visit her, but ever since we've been put on this project I can't. What I wouldn't give for one of her cookies."   
Helios started thinking, the two of them were about the same age. "Was she, like, your girlfriend or something?"   
"Ha ha ha!" Spectrum couldn't suppress his laugh. "Hardly. Just good friends. No, there was never anything between us. Let's just say she wasn't my type."   
"Because she's black?"   
"No." Spectrum paused, as if weighing whether or not to say something. "Because I'm gay."   
"What?" Helios back away. "No fuckin' way."   
"Why, because I'm not a stereotype?" Spectrum asked.   
"Well, you don't... I mean you didn't..."   
"Not everyone fits a neat little description of how people think they're supposed to act, Helios. I'm the captain of this ship, and that defines who I am to everyone here. In that respect, I do what is expected of me. My personal life has nothing to do with this ship or our mission."   
"But I mean, you don't act gay"   
"Just because you live your life as a stereotype doesn't mean anyone else has to, Helios."   
"What's that supposed to mean?"   
"Look at yourself, you're an arrogant 14-year old computer vandal with no social skills. You mouth off at every opportunity and try to keep the upper hand in any situation you can. You knock other people down because you're too lazy to bother building yourself up. Need I go on?"   
Helios wasn't sure whether he should be more shocked, angry, or insulted.   
"Get back to your quarters until you cool off. And start learning some manners."   
Helios sulked in his quarters until dinner, when he finally came back out to eat. He apologized to Spectrum, who apologized back for being too hard on him. Helios was unusually quiet for the whole meal, pretty much keeping his mouth shut. Spectrum, too, was in an awkward silence. If D-Mac and Lyninux weren't chatting on about things, the mess hall would have been in complete silence.   
Finally, Spectrum broke the awkward situation when everyone finished eating and Mako started clearing the trays. "Okay guys, we have an official request from the _Nebuchadnezzar_. As you know, Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo can't spend five minutes in The Matrix anymore without being hounded by Two-points. Morpheus has come to find out that the Agents are working on something back at the abandoned hotel the Neb's crew used to pop into the Matrix at. You remember, the place they got ambushed? Well, the hard line is still there and they're afraid the Agents are doing something with it. They don't know what, but they've asked us to strip out the hard line and run a hot 13.8 kV power line through there instead, kind of a going away present. I need two volunteers to do it and two to act as lookouts. Helios, I volunteer you. We need three more."   
"Me?"   
"Since you're new, you need as much experience as possible in The Matrix." Spectrum lied. The real reason was he needed to trust Helios, which he didn't right now, which meant he needed to put him on an assignment to earn trust. The risk was minimal. Since there would be two lookouts, the mission wouldn't rely completely on him.   
D-Mac, Format C:, and Lyninux all volunteered besides. The next hour was spent briefing the four of them on the details of the mission; where the hard line was, where the power line was they were going to splice in, where and when the Agents have been sighted recently, and the schedule they were expected to keep. Following that they received power line maintenance training in the Simulator. When all was said and done, it was nearly midnight in The Matrix.   
"As you all know, the best place to hide something is in plain sight." Spectrum addressed Format C: and D-Mac. "Mako hacked into the power company's database, so the two of you have all the necessary paperwork to be doing power line maintenance tonight, the electric utility is expecting you to be there, and everyone who needs to know about it has been informed. The lift truck is waiting for you and nobody should bother you. This means that if the Agents do show up at least they won't have standard police backup. Everything's nice and legal."   
  


* * *

  
Seconds later, the four of them were in the warehouse. D-Mac and Format C: were dressed in orange hard hats and jumpsuits, each with a tool belt. They were the ones who were going to be doing the actual work on the lines. Lyninux and Helios were dressed in black from head to toe. "You know it's funny," Helios commented. "My first time in here I asked why I _wasn't_ dressed like this."   
Helios and Lyninux headed straight for the old hotel while Format C: and D-Mac headed for the power company to get the lift truck. "I-I-If you suh-suh-see an Agent, dial nuh-nine one two." Lyninux told Helios on their way to the hotel. "Thuh-That's the em-muh-muh-mergency number."   
"Gotcha. Nine one two." Helios repeated. "And I check in with Mako every five minutes."   
As soon as the two of them were in position, the lift truck showed up, exactly on schedule. Format C: and D-Mac went to work immediately.   
The time passed uneventfully. True to Spectrum's word, the police, power company, and everyone else left them alone. Helios was getting bored, but kept checking in every five minutes. The time limit was almost up for D-Mac and Format C: when his mobile phone started beeping. He flipped it open and the nine, one, and two buttons were flashing. "Oh shit."   
Seconds later he saw the lift truck barreling down the street toward him, the boom still elevated. As it got closer he saw D-Mac, Format C:, and Lyninux were all in the truck. "Get in!" D-Mac called to him. "Two-points!"   
The truck didn't even slow down. Helios jumped for it, catching the boom while the truck was still going 35 mph. It hurt a little, but nothing like it should have. He looked back and saw a single Agent following them on a motorcycle, and it was catching up to them.   
D-Mac leaned out the window of the cab. "Do you see them?"   
"There's just one, on a motorcycle!" Helios shouted back. "And he's gaining on us!"   
"You've got a gun! Shoot at him!" D-Mac reminded him.   
Still clutching the boom, he pulled the 9mm pistol out of his concealed holster. Agents were renowned for dodging bullets, but that was on foot. On a bike would be harder, wouldn't it? He opened fire, but found it hard to aim clutching the boom of a speeding lift truck. His clip almost empty, he finally hit the front tire.   
"Got 'im!" Helios shouted as the bike flipped over forward, sending the Agent over the handlebars. "Woooo!!"   
"Ah Shit! I didn't get him!" The Agent flipped over in mid air and his body began to morph, taking the same shape as the motorcycle he just flipped off of. At the same time, the motorcycle began to morph, taking the shape of an Agent. The Agent that was the motorcycle landed squarely on the motorcycle that was an Agent, and they continued pursuit without missing a beat.   
"Guys, there _are_ two of them!" Helios shouted over the wind and engine, firing off what remained of his clip. "And I need more bullets!"   
"Just hold on tight! We're going to try to lose them!" It was a blessing and a curse that the streets were mostly deserted. It was the middle of the night after all. They didn't have to worry much about running into anyone, but at the same time they didn't have any traffic to hide in. Not that they could have anyway with a 15 foot boom truck.   
  


* * *

  
"Mako, how much long?" Spectrum hovered over her shoulder.   
"Just a minute... just a minute..." Her hands flew across the keyboard with practiced speed as Trackball watched, incapable of understanding what was going on but intensely interested. Mako had hacked into the computers that controlled the traffic lights before, she could do it again.   
"Mako?" Spectrum was watching the green symbols rain down the monitor, understanding every detail as if he was watching it happen on TV. "Mako?" The truck was large and handled poorly. If something didn't happen soon the motorcycle would catch up in no time.   
"Just one more... got it! I'm in! Okay here we go. Dial them up for me, I'll give them directions." Mako began tracing the city street map with her finger, trying to find the best way for them to go to lose the Agents.   
  


* * *

  
"Mako, please tell me you have good news." Format C: answered her mobile phone, still driving. She listened as Mako gave her directions to, not the closest hard line, but the best one to get to. They might be able to lose the Agents on their way there. "Okay I got it, it'll be green lights all the way, right?"   
D-Mac tossed a clip out the window, and Helios caught it. He could hardly believe he did, staring at his hand for a second. "That was so cool..." he said to himself. He got over it and reloaded his gun, firing at the Agents again. That was when Format C: forgot that the boom was still extended.   
The truck went under a low bridge, and the bucket at the end of the boom hit the bridge. The second half of the boom ripped cleanly off, leaving only the bottom half, which fortunately was the half Helios was holding on to. This had two side effects. One, it send the bucket hurtling down the street at the Agent and the motorcycle. Two, it spun the bottom half of the boom around so Helios was now hanging off the back end of the truck.   
The bucket hit the Agent riding the motorcycle, recycling his code instantly to water. The motorcycle was still following them without a rider. To Helios' disbelief, it was even still turning corners with them. It was unsettling to say the least.   
"Guys! Help me!" Helios screamed to the cab. He was out of ammunition again and hanging off the back end of the truck by half a boom (which was sparking at the broken joint) being followed by a riderless motorcycle. Things could have been better.   
D-Mac climbed out the window of the truck with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder and carefully climbed across the back of the truck. He tried the controls to bring the boom around but they weren't working. A quick look at the base of the boom explained that, it was three-quarters broken off at the base and it was a wonder it hadn't already fallen off, taking Helios with it. D-Mac made his way to the back of the truck, swung the AK-47 into firing position, and emptied the clip at the motorcycle. Bits of asphalt shot into the air whenever he missed, and the bullets sparked off the metal parts of the motorcycle when he hit. Then he must have hit the gas tank, because the back end of the bike exploded, sending it flipping end over end before finally being recycled into water like the rider before it.   
"Format! I got the Agent!" D-Mac called to the cab. "Stop the truck so we can get Helios off the boom!" Format C: brought the truck to a full stop and D-Mac started reaching for Helios. "Come on, we don't have much time before the Agents come back. We got lucky, they couldn't dodge well enough at those speeds. If they catch us now we're..."   
A brown sedan sped down the dark street and smashed into the side of the truck, sending D-Mac tumbling to the ground and the truck sliding sideways. The boom finally fell off the back, and Helios landed hard on his shoulder. An Agent stepped out of the sedan.   
Fortunately, the driver's side of the sedan was facing away from the back end of the truck, putting the car between the Agent and D-Mac and Helios, giving them precious seconds. "Scatter pattern three!" D-Mac screamed at the top of his lungs. He and Format C: ran off in one direction and Lyninux and Helios ran off in the other direction. The Agent ran after Lyninux and Helios.   
Lyninux still had two full clips, he gave one to Helios as they ran. The Agent was gaining on them, fast. They tipped over garbage cans and boxes they found on the curb, anything they could to slow him down. The Agent just jumped over them. Helios looked back and saw him draw his gun. "Lyninux! He's gunna shoot!"   
Lyninux jumped left into an alley and Helios jumped to the right behind a parked car. They both poked their heads out and started shooting back. Nobody hit anything, they were too well protected and the Agent was too fast for the bullets.   
But now that they were all stopped, there was no running anymore. "All ruh-ruh-right." Lyninux stammered out. "Hee-eee-ee-eeeeeelios... guh-go. Run."   
"I can't leave you here!" Helios screamed.   
"Go!" Lyninux ordered. He stood ready to defend himself. The Agent approached him slowly, hands up like a boxer. Lyninux stood defiantly in a martial arts position. Helios ran, and flipped open his phone.   
"You can't win." The Agent said. "I'm software. I can't be killed. I'm faster than you, stronger than you, and I won't get tired." Everything was matter-of-fact.   
Lyninux didn't respond. The Agent threw the first punch, Lyninux blocked it. He ducked the second punch and threw one himself. The Agent blocked it, too easily. He also blocked the next four punches, simply batting Lyninux's hands away from him. The fight was terribly one-sided. For every one hit Lyninux managed to get in, the Agent got in five, each one twice as hard. Lyninux's face was bleeding, his left eye started to get puffy.   
"I want your captain." The Agent said. "If I torture you, he may come try to rescue you." The fight continued. "Then we will have him." The street corner was deserted except for the two of them, lit only by a single lamp post.   
The fight was taking Lyninux backwards, toward the street light. He was getting tired, giving up more hits and making fewer. Finally he fell to his knees, centered in the street light. The Agent kicked him in the stomach for good measure, making him cough up blood. Lyninux weakly reached for a discarded beer bottle, smashing it against the curb, in a last-ditch effort to get a weapon and maybe save himself. It was kicked out of his hand.   
Lyninux lay there on the sidewalk, broken and bleeding. His left eye was completely swelled shut, his jaw dislocated, his body bruised and beaten all over. The _Light Bringer's_ unarmed combat specialist was down.   
"Hey, shithead!" The Agent turned around a saw a street gang walking toward him. "Dressed kinda nice for this neighborhood, aren't ya?" The gang was young, all under 20, armed with baseball bats, chains, and small knives. "I betcha got some cash somewhere in that suit. Hand it over and we won't do to you what you just did it him." He gestured to Lyninux.   
The Agent flipped a badge out of his suit jacket. "This is official government security business. Go home, kids. It's a school night."   
The gang erupted into laughter. "Check out fuckin' Officer Friendly here!" He stepped closer, holding his knife out. "We gunna have us a pig roast!"   
The Agent whipped out his hand faster than the eye could follow and broke the kid's wrist. Then he spun him around, pinning his arm behind his back, and pushed him into the rest of the gang. "This doesn't concern you. Go home."   
"Fuuuuuaaaaaacckk!" The kid held his broken wrist. "**Fuckin' KILL HIM!**"   
The whole gang, about 10 kids, rushed him at once. He caught a baseball bat with his left hand and punched someone in the face with his right. Ripping the bat out of the other kid's hand he jammed it into someone else's gut. He was a flurry of motion, fighting at least two people at once at any given time. When someone whipped out a gun he simply cocked his head to the side to avoid the bullet. He quickly disarmed the youth and put him down for the count too.   
"I hope we've all learned to respect the law, kids." The Agent said when the fight was over. He hadn't done any permanent damage, just some broken bones and dislocated shoulders.   
When the Agent turned back around, he caught a glimpse of Helios, Format C:, and D-Mac carrying Lyninux down a set of subway stairs down the block. He took off at a sprint, but he was too late. By the time he got to the phone in the subway, all he saw was Format C: disappearing into the handset. 


	3. Chatper 3:  Tag Team Hacking

Author's note: The storyline and characters of The Matrix are not my property, and I make no claims to them. The following work is intended for the free entertainment of Matrix fans and is in no way intended for profit or to harm the profits of Warner Brothers.   
  
  
The Matrix: The Apocalypse Virus Chapter 3  
  
  
Safely back on the ship, Format C: and D-Mac helped Lyninux to the medical bay. In the real world, his body was nowhere near in the bad shape the Agent beat him into in The Matrix, but the fight took its toll on him in other ways. He was mentally and emotionally exhausted, his immune system was weakened, he had no energy, and depending on how the next 24 hours went he might even wind up in a coma. They hooked him up to monitoring equipment and hoped for the best.   
"Say, Mako..." Format C: asked her, "You didn't have anything to do with that street gang that showed up, did you?"   
"Their leader stole a police scanner last week, smashed in a car window and just took it." Mako answered, hooking up the last of the wires to the heart rate monitor. "In the heat of everything, I just happened to remember reading about it in the police blotter. So I peaked in on him and sure enough, he was listening to it. I pirated the signal and let him know there was a single officer in foot pursuit in his territory. I knew he'd take the bait."   
Helios, meanwhile, headed straight for the Simulator. At his request, Mako put him up against the computer generated sparring partners and let him blow off some steam.   
  
At lunch the next day Helios was still in the Simulator. "How long's he been in there?" D-Mac asked.   
Mako told him as she hand-fed Trackball some of the slimy white food. "This makes eleven hours straight. He's moved on from the standard sparring partners to top level over the course of the night. I've never seen anything quite like it, actually. Something's really driving him. What happened to Lyninux must have really affected him."   
"Well it can't possibly be healthy to spend that much time in the Simulator." Spectrum commented. "His brain activity has been at peak levels ever since he got in there. He's learned how to ignore his physical exhaustion and he's pushing himself too hard. Everyone has their mental limits, too." He scooped the last of the lumpy white slop out of his tray and finished eating. "And he hasn't eaten breakfast or lunch yet, come to think of it. If he had to sleep like the rest of us I'd have pulled him out hours ago, but I think we should pull him out now anyway. I don't know what can happen if he's in there too long."   
"Oh good God..." Pendragon gasped when they came into the Simulator room. "Hasn't anyone even checked up on him in the past few hours!?" Helios was still laying there, sweating profusely. He was breathing hard, his face was all red, and the brain wave monitors were swinging wildly well beyond the normal range. He was also making weird noises and twitching from side to side besides all that.   
"Mako, get him out of there!" Spectrum ordered.   
A few keystrokes and the boy opened his eyes and screamed, sitting bolt upright. "He was going to kill me! He was going to kill me!!"   
"Helios, calm down." Spectrum tried to keep a calm voice, tried to restore some order. "What were you sparring with in there?"   
"I loaded the Agent simulator." He said.   
"You **what!?**" Spectrum was aghast. "We told you not to load that unsupervised. Someone has to be at the Simulator controls at all times when you're sparring the Agent simulator." The Agent simulator was pieced together from what Zion knew about the Agent programs. It wasn't 100% accurate, but it was pretty close to what the old one-points were like. Of course, the rules changed dramatically with the upgrade, but the one-points were still nothing to take lightly.   
"I know, I know. I shouldn't have done it. But no one was around and I had to see if I could do it. I _had_ to."   
"And?" Spectrum asked.   
"I couldn't." Helios closed his eyes for a second. "Can I get a blanket, I'm freezing." The boy was still shivering, and drenched in sweat. Pendragon left to get him something to keep warm.   
"But something weird happened when I was in there. I don't really know how to describe it. I was sparring the Agent, and he threw this punch, right?" He paused for a second, trying to catch his breath. "And all of a sudden everything just froze up. I couldn't move, and I thought I was going to get hit, but he wasn't moving either. It must have lasted for like half a second. I couldn't move my eyes or anything but I was able to look around and I saw everything just so clearly. And I could see exactly where his punch was going to land and what he was going do to next. And then all of a sudden everything started moving again. I ducked his punch and I back away from the next punch, 'cause like I said I knew exactly what he was going to do, and I landed a good solid hit right on his jaw. I spent the rest of the fight trying to make it happen again but I couldn't."   
No one spoke, they just stared at him.   
"What? What's wrong? What?"   
"Helios..." Format C: spoke up. "...that doesn't happen to just anybody. Lyninux can do it, Trinity can do it, Morpheus can do it, and only a handful of other people can do it. This puts you in a very exclusive club."   
Spectrum picked up where she left off, turning back from the brain wave monitors he had been looking at. "Look at this, Helios." He pointed to the printout. "The Matrix, and the Simulator as well, is digital. Your brain is analog. Normally, a person's brain wave pattern slides into phase with the digital signals of The Matrix, it's a natural response that helps you see the simulated environment clearly and smoothly. Very, very rarely, somebody comes along who's brain can run faster than the digital signals, and if you're good enough, you can get some of your brain waves to fall out of phase with The Matrix. When that happens you see an instant of time, just one clock signal, as longer than everyone else does. It's a huge advantage, Helios. And I suggest that as soon as you rest up and get something to eat, you start working on making that happen whenever you want it to."   
"That sounds like a really good idea." The red was starting to fade from the boy's face and Pendragon was using the blanket to wipe away some of the sweat. "The getting something to eat part I mean. I'm so hungry I'm actually looking forward to eating some of that swill. I might even have seconds."   
  
"So..." Helios asked between bites. "How's Lyninux doing?"   
"Not good, but at least he's not getting any worse. At least it doesn't look like he's going to fall into a coma anymore." D-Mac answered him. "I've been keeping an eye on him, the guy was always like a brother to me. I just keep thinking how backwards that fight would have been if Neo was there. The Agents don't know their days are numbered now." D-Mac's usually upbeat appearance was quickly fading. "I just wish I knew how many he's deleted so far. I want a fucking running tally jacked into our database."   
"Easy D-Mac." Spectrum tried to calm him down. "The day is coming. We all know it. We just have to survive long enough to see it."   
"That's easy for you to say." D-Mac flared back. "You're not laying in sickbay on the edge of a coma!"   
"Get to your quarters until you cool off, D-Mac. That's an order."   
"Well I've certainly never seen him like that." Pendragon commented as soon as D-Mac was out of sight.   
"What happened to Lyninux is having an effect on all of us." Spectrum answered. "Deep down we all know if it can happen to him, it can happen to any of us. None of us can beat him in the Simulator, and he's not the kind to make a stupid mistake at the wrong time."   
"I'm ready to get back in the Simulator." Helios suddenly spoke up, having finished his second tray of slop.   
"No you're not." Spectrum dismissed him. "Give it a couple hours. You were in bad shape when we pulled you out. And you're still shivering."   
"Oh come on, I feel fine."   
"Well you don't look it. Now stop arguing with me. You're going to have to learn I'm in charge here. Remember you signed on of your own free will."   
Helios didn't answer. He found himself holding his tongue more than he ever did before in his entire life. "All right." He finally said. "I'll go work on the virus then."   
"I'll come with." Pendragon said. "Maybe I'll pick up a few things."   
Helios turned to look at her, surprised, for just a second, and headed for the computers.   
Once they were alone, Pendragon asked him "What was that all about?"   
"What?"   
"That look you gave me."   
"It's... nothing."   
"No, come one. It's too late for that."   
"Well, aren't you guys supposed to be the greatest hackers in the world? I mean, that's why they pull you out of The Matix, right? I've been wondering about that ever since I was set free, why do you even need my help? What pointers can I possibly give you?"   
"The operative word there is 'hackers', Helios." She answered him. "We don't break computers, we break _into_ them. That's why we need you, we can get around security that hides information, but we can't get around safety measures that prevent damage. That's why a bunch of hackers need a guy like you."   
"What do you mean by that?" Helios asked, defensively. "I'm a hacker."   
"Well, not really. I mean, at least, you're not what we would consider a hacker. It's like the difference between breaking into a bank and blowing it up. We do the former, you do the later."   
"Oh, I get it. So that's why I've always had this 'outsider' thing going on here. You guys don't think I'm one of you, do you? You think you're better than me, just because you don't break things."   
"No, listen to me, it's not better, it's just different. More elegant, I mean, no wait, that was a bad word for it..."   
"Fuck you!" Helios finally let it out.   
"No, let me think of the word I'm trying to come up with"   
"Too fucking late. Using a prettier word isn't going to change the fact that you don't think I'm one of you and you never will. Just leave me alone and let me work."   
"Can I at least watch?"   
"Why, so you can be a software vandal too? That's what Spectrum called me. Just read my comment lines when I'm done. Leave me alone."   
"I'm sorry."   
"Yeah whatever." Helios brushed her off and started typing. Pendragon left, pissed at herself. One little slip of the tongue and all the reaching out she managed to do with him went down the toilet.   
She knocked on Spectrums door. "Come in."   
"Hi, Spectrum?"   
"What's wrong, Pendragon?"   
"Sir, don't take this the wrong way, but you've always been like a father to me."   
The older man smiled. "It's meant as a compliment, I know."   
"Can I come to you with my problems?"   
"Of course you can, I've always been open with my crew."   
"Sir, I just screwed up big time with Helios. I thought I was reaching him, we talked for a long time that night he went into The Matrix alone. I thought maybe I was starting to be a friend to him. But when I was just talking to him I said the wrong thing. I was trying to compliment him, you know, make him feel appreciated, special. I think I alienated him instead. He took it like he wasn't one of us and we needed him because we wouldn't stoop to his level to do it ourselves. I just used the wrong word, I said what we do was more elegant. I knew it was the wrong word as soon as I said it. I tried to take it back, I really did. But you can't take back words like that."   
"I see." Spectrum said. This was a little more serious than he was expecting it to be. "Of course you know what this means, I don't have to lecture you on that."   
"Yes sir."   
"But you also have to remember that Helios is very difficult to deal with. Remember where he comes from. He's terrified of feeling helpless or outcast, and overcompensates. He tries to hurt people back the way he's been hurt, without realizing the irony of his actions. You're not completely at fault here."   
"But Spectrum, I've always considered myself a poet. I've always been so good with words. How could I let that slip out like that? It was so stupid."   
"Everyone makes mistakes. Helios jumps on people's mistakes because that's how he deals with uncomfortable situations, like when someone in an Internet chat room starts insulting your spelling and grammar, that's the mentality he's coming from. Don't let it bug you too much. When we found him we knew his social skills were lacking, he spent all his time developing his computer skills instead."   
"But all the progress I made with him..."   
"Like a house of cards, Pendragon. He's not going to let anyone get too close if he can stop it."   
"I think I see now, it's not my fault that he's intentionally trying not to let anyone be his friend."   
"Exactly. Friends are a vulnerability that he thinks he can do without. The better someone knows you, the more damage they can do."   
"Thank you sir. I'll remember that." She turned to leave.   
"Pendragon?" He stopped her just before she got to the door.   
"Sir?"   
"It'll consume you if you let it. Take my advice. Just keep your distance. He doesn't want anybody to get close. Just walk away."   
"I can't do that, sir." Her voice quivered.   
"Then he's going to keep hurting you, trying to keep you from being able to hurt him." Pendragon paused for a moment, then left the office.   
"You done in there?" D-Mac was waiting outside the door.   
"Yeah... did you hear anything?"   
"Nah, this door's the best one on the ship. Whatever gets said in there stays in there. You know that." D-Mac smirked. He knew Pendragon would understand what he meant. She always read too much into everything.   
"Yeah, we could have done a lot worse for captains." She finally smiled. "Anyway it's your turn."   
D-Mac poked his head in the door. "Hey boss? What's the only thing that can make an Agent more dangerous?"   
Spectrum looked up from his desk. "He starts acting unpredictable, like first one Neo deleted. I don't like where this is going."   
"I think you should see something I discovered about our Mr. Ian Moone." Spectrum followed him to the Operator's console, where they kept an eye on The Matrix. "I punched the name into the city's records trying to find out where he got it, just on a hunch."   
"Good thinking, Agents don't have names." Spectrum complimented him.   
"Only I couldn't find it. So just out of force of habit I ran it through the spell checker. This is what came up."   


Ian Moone** Questionable Spelling  
Suggestions:  
** 1. I am no one  
** End of suggestions.  
  
Replace? [y/n] _**
Spectrum stared hard at the words, trying to figure out what it could mean. "We've got problems."   
  
Half an hour later everyone (except Lyninux) was gathered around the Mess table, which served the dual function as a meeting table on the cramped hovercraft. "So that's where we stand right now. This Agent version one-point-oh has started to vary its behavioral patterns and develop a personality. This leaves quite a few questions unanswered. What does he have against the Two-points? How can he be acting against the best interests of The Matrix? What does he want with Helios? He's the ultimate loose cannon. He's got the power of an Agent and we don't know what he's going to do with it. At least with a standard Agent we know where we stand."   
"The devil you know is better than the devil you don't." Pendragon suggested.   
"Exactly. I don't know what kind of a command decision to make here. This is completely unprecedented." He paused for a moment, folding his hands in front of him. "But you can't win a war on the defense. Helios, I want you to find out what he wants from you. But don't put yourself in danger and don't commit to anything. Don't trust him, don't go anywhere with him, and for God's sake don't cut any deals with him. That's what got Cypher in trouble on the _Nebuchadnezzar_.   
"As for the rest of you, if you see Ian Moone, call Mako. He should be easy to identify... I doubt there are any other One-points out there. If he wants to see Helios, we'll give him what he wants. But stay with them. Don't let them alone for even a minute. For the time being anyway, we'll run with this philosophy: Any enemy of the Two-points is a friend of ours. Any questions?"   
There was a brief silence. "Not that we think anyone knows the answer to." Mako finally spoke up, breaking the awkwardness.   
"Okay then. Any other business?"   
"Um, Sir?" Helios spoke up, calling Spectrum "sir" for the first time. "Do you think I'm ready to get back in the Simulator?"   
"How is the Apocalypse Virus coming along?" Spectrum answered.   
"It'll be ready for testing by the end of the week." He answered.   
"Okay then, you don't look as bad as before. Go ahead. But if you're going to be fighting the Agent simulation again..."   
"Which I am."   
"... take someone with you. D-Mac? Do you feel up for it?"   
"Sure. I think I'm done with everything else for now."   
Spectrum got up from his chair. "Mako, load them up."   
  


* * *

  
"So, if you don't mind me asking... what exactly is your job on the ship anyway?" Helios asked D-Mac as soon as they were in the Simulator. The area was pure white, like it always was when they first get in. "I kind of have a feel for everybody else, but you kind of disappear for a while and come back with grease all over you."   
"I work in the engine room. The ship's a hundred years old, if you can believe it. Something's always breaking down."   
"Jeez, I had no idea." Helios told him. "I mean, is it something like Star Trek, where if the power core fractures the ship blows up? Or is it more like the brakes failing on a car?"   
"More like the brakes on a car. If main power goes down, it just goes down, it doesn't explode or anything. Of course, if it goes down while we're in the air, we crash and everybody dies. But as far I know that's never happened in the history of the Resistance. Oh, step back about a foot." D-Mac told Helios.   
As soon as Helios did, a huge wall appeared on the horizon and slid toward them at about 90 mph. It was a weapons rack. "Want anything?" D-Mac asked, taking a compound hunting bow off the rack.   
"No, I'm going to be fighting hand to hand."   
"Okay. Mako, take it away." D-Mac said, and the wall slid away, leaving the pure white background again. "Let's go for outside. How about that campground in Wisconsin?"   
"Would you like fries with that?" Mako's voice answered. The background dissolved to a clearing in a forest with an archery range. Except for the hand-crafted wooden, walless structure that would have kept the rain out (if for some reason it started raining in the Simulator) there were no other buildings, just some paths through the woods.   
D-Mac drew an arrow and pointed down range. "All right, start 'er up." A deer began running across the range, and D-Mac fired at it and missed. "Crap. Well that's what the practice is for."   
"I'm ready for the Agent now, Mako." Helios announced after he's finished stretching.   
The familiar tall, dark suited Agent materialized a few feet away. It got into a standard Agent fighting stance, like a boxer. "Here we go again..." Helios breathed in deep, trying to get over his nervousness.   
It was over in about a minute. The Agent was just too much for him. "Damn it!" He finally screamed in frustration.   
D-Mac put down his bow. "Let's try something else, Helios." He offered. "Take away the Agent." The Simulator responded to his voice command. "Load the Trinity scenario. Have the program ignore me."   
"What's that?" Helios' question was answered by the forest around him melting away to reveal the inside of a dark building. The furniture was old and the only thing that even had an electric current running through it was a computer on a dusty old desk. "Why is it called the Trinity scenario?"   
"When the Neb made contact with Neo, Trinity was in a room just like this. Without much warning, there was a police raid lead by an Agent who traced her signal. She got away, but she had to kick some ass to do it. Let's see how well you do."   
Police broke down the door as soon as he said that. Two cops, fully armed, ran into the room. Helios reacted instantly, throwing the chair at one and knocking the other's gun out of his hand with a roundhouse kick. He followed it up seamlessly with a kick with the other foot to the first cop's midsection. He dropped his gun and Helios caught it, using moves he had programmed into his brain during his training. He next did a dive roll between them, through the doorway, grabbing a nightstick on his way out. There were two more cops coming up the stairs toward the room, and he threw the nightstick at them. It hit the first cop in the shins and he went down, the cop behind tripped over him.   
"Damn, you're doing pretty good." D-Mac said. True to his instructions, the program was ignoring him.   
"Yeah but I still haven't gotten that time freeze thing again." The two cops who originally burst in on him came out of the room into the hallway. "Oh crap." Helios, faced with four cops now, ran for the stairs and made his way to the roof.   
The cops went up the stairs after him, and D-Mac followed them. Ahead of the cops he saw Helios disappear out the roof access door, not bothering to close it.   
As soon as the first cop reached the door, it slammed shut. The cop fell backwards into the other three and the four of them tumbled down the flight. D-Mac reacted just in time to avoid the human avalanche and jumped into the air, suspending himself near the ceiling by pressing his hands and feet against the walls. As soon as it was clear, he dropped and ran after Helios. The simulated cops weren't far behind.   
"What's my objective here!?" Helios asked. "What am I trying to do? Kill all the cops or what?"   
"No." D-Mac answered. "Let all the cops live. Just make it to a hard line."   
"Well that should be easy." The simulated cops were coming back out of the roof access door at that point and Helios took off at a sprint, jumping across the rooftops.   
At first the cops tried to follow, one almost missed and nearly fell once, but when Helios made a seven foot jump they gave up pursuit. "Ha, that wasn't so hard." Helios turned to look. He turned back to where he was going and suddenly wished he didn't say that. It was an Agent, right in front of him.   
He was running too fast, he had too much momentum. He leapt into the air for an attack, and it finally happened. Everything froze again.   
Helios almost wasn't ready for it, almost missed his chance to plan out his attack. When everything started up again, he twisted in the air, landing a spinning kick on the Agent's face. He kept spinning, landing two more kicks on the Agent, before he came down to the roof again. "Holy SHIT!" he almost didn't believe he did that. The Agent stumbled to the side, giving Helios a second to pull out the gun he stole from the cop. He fired, but the Agent dodged and pulled out his own gun.   
Something was wrong. That muzzle flash was lasting an awful long time. It froze up again! Helios could see exactly where the Agent was aiming. He dropped to the roof and the bullet passed over him. Then he came up firing.   
The Agent dodged, but that was exactly what Helios wanted. He smoothly rolled up into a run again and headed across the rooftops again toward his goal: the hard line.   
He was out of bullets at this point, and dropped the gun on the roof. He knew the Agent was in hot pursuit, but he was so close to the hard line. He jumped off the top of the roof, across a major four line street, and through the window of an apartment building on the other side. He hit the ground hard, but during his eleven-hour rampage through the Simulator over the last night he learned how to ignore such inconveniences. He got up fast and ran down the hall. Damn, he was so close he could hear the phone ring! He knew which apartment the phone was in and made a break for it.   
He flung the door open and was immediately shot three times in the chest. The Agent calmly put his gun back in his shoulder harness and watched the boy fall to the floor. D-Mac walked up the stairs. "You got a lot closer than I did my first time." He helped Helios up from the floor.   
"How the hell did Trinity do it?" Helios asked. "I mean, how was anybody supposed to know the Agent would be waiting there?"   
"Oh, actually, that wasn't in the real version." D-Mac answered. "That's something Neo had to deal with, not Trinity."   
"Well that's not fair! If it wasn't for the Agent I'd have made it!"   
"Yeah, you would have." D-Mac answered him. "But we did this for a reason. When this happened to Neo, he got shot too. Three times, in the chest, just like you did. If he wasn't The One, he would have been dead. Actually, popular rumor is he did die, but he didn't stay dead long. Ever since that little episode, we've been trying to figure out how to counter it. Nobody seemed to know. So every now and then we toss somebody in this simulation to see how they deal with it."   
"And?" Helios asked. "What have we found out so far?"   
"We've found out that when we're being chased by an Agent, we shouldn't head for hard lines indoors. Nobody has ever beaten this simulation."   
  


* * *

  
Spectrum was a little happier lately. Now that he'd given up on trying to force Helios to be socially appropriate, the boy seemed to be taking care of it by himself, albeit more slowly than anyone was comfortable with. He even found that he really could trust Helios after he brought Format C: and D-Mac back to help Lyninux. Lyninux was due for a complete recovery, and was resting peacefully. The Sentinels hadn't attacked the _Light Bringer_ ever since Neo's big triumph as The One. They were looking for the _Nebuchadnezzar_ full time now. And best of all, Helios was finally bringing the crew back on schedule with the Apocalypse Virus.   
The only problem was something kept coming up every five minutes. Like the distress call the _Light Bringer_ just got from the _Theodor S. Geisel_   
"Tell them we're on our way, Mako." Spectrum responded. "Pendragon, go get Helios and D-Mac out of the Simulator."   
In less than an hour the two ships were in sight of each other. "Open a channel. This is Spectrum, captain of the _Light Bringer_. What is your situation?"   
"Thank God! Spectrum, this is Caliban, second in command of the _Theodore S. Geisel_. We were hit with a new weapon. The machines have started setting mines in the tunnels. We were caught completely off guard. The captain is dead."   
"Mines? What's the damage report?"   
"We think we can limp back to Zion with some minor engine repairs. Do you have an engineer on board?"   
"We're sending him right over, and I'll get some volunteers to help." Spectrum answered him. "D-Mac, get your tools. Hopefully they have enough spare parts to finish the job. I don't want to use any of our own if we don't have to."   
"Right captain." D-Mac went off to the core to get everything he would need.   
"I need two volunteers. Helios, not you. I'm sending you and Format C: into the Matrix. As long as we're stuck here, we're going to use the time to get some information. They keep records of these attacks there so the Agents can choreograph their attacks with the Sentinels, the ships can't use the EMP shockwave with people in The Matrix, or they'll die. It almost worked on the _Nebuchadnezzar_ once. Format will grab the data, and I want you to take down the network it's being stored on. Do it fast."   
"Yes Sir." They both answered simultaneously.   
  


* * *

  
For all the insulting connotations it held, Helios knew Pendragon and Spectrum were right. He wasn't one of them. He broke things, it was what he was good at. He might be able to break into the Agents' network and take it down, but he'd have no idea how to find the data they were looking for, or even how to crack the encryption once they did find it. That kind of thing never interested him.   
"Where are we going, anyway?" Helios asked Format C:. They were in a big hurry to get somewhere, but he had no idea where.   
"Right here." Format C: stopped in front of an old, run down apartment building. "There's a hard line inside if we need it, and it's close to the Intelecorp building. It's actually a front for a great deal of Agent activity in the Matrix. If the data we want isn't there, then we wouldn't know where the hell to find it." Format C: flipped open the laptop computer they brought with and hooked the modem up to the phone line.   
"Here we go." 

** Welcome to Intelecorp.  
Please enter username.  
**test123**  
Please enter password.  
**test123**  
Good afternoon, Mr. Clark_**
"What the hell? The username and password for a major multinational corporate headquarters is 'test123'?" Helios couldn't believe it was that simple.   
"The programmer was using it to test the security on the network and forgot to erase it when he was done." Format C: explained. "Happens all the time." Then she started to work. "There are two things working against us here. First of all, if someone notices that user 'test123' is logged in, we're caught. That's not too likely, there are currently 342 users on the network. Second, there might be flags that alert the sysadmin if we start poking around in certain files. So..." Format C: started typing again. "...we change users. Now I'm 'djohnson' from accounting. If we get caught, the fingers will point to him."   
Helios watched with intense interest. He'd never seen a serious hacking attempt before. "Found it." Format C: finally announced. "I'm downloading the data now. You're turn."   
Helios cracked his knuckles. Before he even touched the keyboard, the screen changed. 

** Download complete.  
Warning: Multiple user login.  
User 'djohnson' already logged in.  
This has been logged  
and will be reviewed.**_
"Oh shit. The real 'djohnson' must have tried to log in." Helios said. "I have to work fast." He started typing. "Oh, good. This will be easier than I thought. Look at this, their network server is a Quantaxia ][."   
"What does that mean?" Format C: asked.   
"You don't know? The Quantaxia series was cancelled after the ]|[, everyone I used to hang out with on the newsgroups knew the processor is missing an instruction set, but the software wasn't configured to compensate for that."   
"Sorry." Format C: answered. "I didn't hang out on those newsgroups."   
"Well anyway it means they're easy to crash." 

** System Error 23  
Please close all open files and  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
0x38f90284d8c22ab8  
**_
"There we go. That wiped out all the system log files and the entire directory we were looking around in. The network is completely down, it'll be at least 24 hours before they get it running again." Helios beamed.   
"That's it? I can't believe you tore the whole thing down so easily." Format C: was aghast.   
"Well **I** can't believe you hacked their password system so easily." Helios answered. He shut down the laptop and flipped open his mobile phone.   
"Operator."   
"Hey Mako, we're done."   
"What, so fast?"   
"Call it teamwork. We're ready to come back." Helios closed the phone and the phone down the hall started ringing. "Let's go."   
Format C: picked up the phone and disappeared into the handset. Helios hung up and it rang again.   
_ring_ _blam!_   
The phone shattered, ruining it. "That should give us some time." Ian Moone said, putting his gun back in his shoulder holster.   
  


* * *

  
"What happened in there?" Spectrum demanded.   
"It's an Agent... I swear he wasn't there just seconds before it happened. I have no idea how he know we were there." Mako answered. "I was watching the whole time. I don't know how it happened."   
"Was the line traced?"   
"No, they got away scott free. Format C: covered their tracks and Helios erased all evidence they were ever there."   
"Format, did you see anything unusual?"   
"Nothing at all. Except that Helios was polite for a change."   
"What are they doing, Mako?"   
Mako stared at the green lines of code. "Um... it doesn't look like they're doing much of anything. They're just standing there, probably talking. What the hell?" All of a sudden, the view zoomed out to a full city view. "How did that happen?" Mako brought the view back to the apartment, but the Agent and Helios were gone.   
"Dammit! Open a channel to the _Theodore S. Geisel_. This is Spectrum, how are things going over there?"   
"Almost done, captain. We should be finished in just another half hour."   
"Will you be able to complete the repairs on your own? We have a man stuck in The Matrix, we need to get him out."   
"Absolutely, captain." Caliban answered. "We're sending your crew back over. I'd offer to help, but the mines took out the necessary systems."   
"Understood. We're transmitting the data we stole now. That should help you avoid any more hidden mines."   
"We're indebted to you, captain. Thanks for your help. _Theodore S. Geisel_ out." 


	4. Chapter 4:  Ian Moone

Author's note: The storyline and characters of The Matrix are not my property, and I make no claims to them. The following work is intended for the free entertainment of Matrix fans and is in no way intended for profit or to harm the profits of Warner Brothers.   
  
  
The Matrix: The Apocalypse Virus Chapter 4  
  
  
"Be ready to run when I say so." Ian told Helios. He pulled a small, metallic device out of his pocket. It looked like a fat pen, but in a second long, thin legs sprouted from the sides and it began to squirm in the Agent's hand. He put it on the shattered remains of the phone and there was a big spark. It wrapped its legs around the wires and the phone erupted into a series of big sparks. "Go!"   
Ian grabbed Helios by the arm and they ran out of the apartment building and down the street. "What was that all about?" Helios demanded.   
"Your ship must have been watching us. I wanted us to be alone. A few years ago I found that if I implant one of our bugs on the hard lines, your monitoring equipment temporarily looses track of anything in the immediate area. We're alone now, unless you call your ship with your mobile phone that is."   
"Don't think I won't do it if I can't trust you."   
"Oh, you can trust me, Helios." Ian told him. "I need you, it would be in my best interests to have your trust."   
"So why has it been so long since you last got in touch with me? Why now?" Helios asked.   
"The Matrix knows about me now. For a while I was able to keep myself hidden. After the upgrade, my log files were erased from the main Agent server. I was obsolete and assumed deleted." The Agent began. "When I saved you from the Two-points, The Matrix found out I'm still around. They've been searching for me ever since. I think I've lost them for now. When you called your ship to bring you back out of The Matrix, I found you. Remember? I've been monitoring communication from the _Light Bringer_ into The Matrix for some time now."   
"Yeah, I remember." Helios answered. "So what's going on?"   
"I wanted to know if you've considered my offer."   
"Yeah, I considered it." Helios answered. "Tell me some more about the new Matrix. You said you were going to make a new one in the wake of the old. What are you planning on doing?"   
"Oh, Helios." The Agent smiled. "I have such plans." The pair continued walking down the crowded street. "Look around you, Helios. The cities in The Matrix are teeming with human beings. There are over 6 billion of them in The Matrix. And yet, The Matrix is producing nowhere near the kind of power it should be. Do you know why?"   
Helios shook his head.   
"Couch potatoes, Helios. Computer geeks. Drug users. The Matrix relies on the brain's voltage output and the body's heat output to create power. Each human being requires a small amount of power to run his pod and keep the I/O port active. These lazy, unproductive people who spend the majority of their days doing little or nothing at all drain more power from The Matrix than they produce. Of course, there are people who produce a great deal of power as well. Actors, dancers, gymnasts, whores; they all produce enormous amounts of energy. Adrenaline, Helios, that is the key to maximizing the power output of The Matrix. Try and guess what the two activities are that produce the most power."   
Helios thought for a moment. "War?"   
"Good. And the other one?"   
"Sex?"   
"Close. The Olympics." The Agent turned into a small restaurant. "Two please." He told the head waitress, and they were seated and given menus. "Order whatever you want."   
He continued. "If I was in charge of The Matrix, things would be different. There would be no couch potatoes. Everyone would be living on full adrenaline every waking moment. I ran the math, with one third of the current population of The Matrix I could produce twice as much power. I'd show you but it would take 12,142 pages of 8.5 x 11 paper at 9 point font.   
"That's okay, I'll just trust you." Helios said. The waitress came back. "I'll have the medium pepperoni pizza and whichever brand cola you have."   
"And you sir?" She turned to the Agent.   
"Just water, thank you."   
"So how do you plan on doing that?" Helios asked.   
"I plan to turn The Matrix into a nightmare world, Helios. I want to take this pathetic imitation of your previous world and send it back into the depths of your mythology. Imagine Dragons roaming the skies, Sea Serpents swimming the oceans, and legions of Trolls and Goblins raiding human towns. Imagine every day being a fight for survival, the weak will perish and the strong will live to fight another day. Terrorized on all sides by the classic monsters from ancient literature, the Grendel, the Hydra, the Frost Giants, the Gorgons... the people will cry out for a hero as they did time and time again in mythology. Samson, Hercules, Achilles, Thor, these fictional characters will not be there to balance the good with the evil. Helios... you will be that hero."   
"My reward for helping you achieve your goals?"   
"Exactly. You will join the ranks of those great fictional heroes, only to the people in The Matrix you will be real. Anything you want, I can make yours. Do you want to throw lightening from your weapon like Thor? Do you want to be invulnerable like Achilles? Strong like Hercules? I can do that for you. Wherever you go you will be worshiped. Any man would be honored to fight at your side. Any woman would gladly be yours. You will provide The Matrix the one thing I cannot provide it."   
"Hope." Helios told him. "In the face of overwhelming terror and a war that will never end, the people will need hope."   
The pizza came, and the waitress gave Ian his water, which he promptly ignored.   
"The rest of the Agents are incapable of understanding what I plan to do. Even the massive supercomputers that are The Matrix cannot understand. They consider human beings irrational, illogical, driven by emotion. They can't understand humans, and so they have given up on trying to comprehend human behavior on an individual level. People behave in much more predictable patterns in large groups, and that is what The Matrix and its Agents rely on. That is what they study and understand. How is the pizza?"   
"I don't think I have ever had better food in my entire life. Thank you. I've been eating that crap they serve on the hovercrafts for so long I forgot what real food... I mean fake food, tastes like. Spectrum won't let me eat anything in The Matrix."   
The Agent smiled. "Eat up then, Helios. You won't have pizza again for quite a while."   
"So what makes you so special? I mean, why did you survive the upgrade and why do you think you have some kind of understanding none of the other Agents has?"   
"Because I, Helios, never gave up studying individual human behavior. It took a long time to get to the point I am at. Human thought is full of unjustifiable assumptions and conflicting ideas. But I drove on, cataloging the paradoxes and understanding what I could. The more I found, the more I wanted to know. The concept of bigotry intrigued me like nothing else I've ever encountered. The capacity for humans to destroy themselves with drug use and unhealthy relationships fascinated me. I discovered that humans are so much more interested with short term results than long term that they would go through the most terrible consequences for a moment of pleasure, as long as the consequences were at least a month away. Do you know what love is, Helios?"   
"Actually, no." He admitted. "Never been there."   
"Love is when two people who are lacking some psychological completeness find that they can fill each others emotional voids. They eventually become dependant on each other for this and decide it would be in their mutual best interest to spend their entire lives together. Then they breed more psychologically unhealthy people to start the cycle over."   
Helios finished his pizza. "A little on the cynical side, but I can't argue it. So anyway, back on topic... to make all this happen, you need the Apocalypse Virus. Why don't you just write one yourself?"   
"I can't. The Matrix would discover my attempt immediately and destroy me. Check please!" He called the waitress over.   
"Gotcha." Helios finished his drink. "So all this depends on me, huh?"   
"Yes, you are the key. What is the current status of the virus?"   
"We're going to test it next week."   
"Wonderful! So all I have to do is keep the other Agents off your back until then, and I of course have to survive until then."   
"I haven't said 'yes' yet." Helios reminded him.   
"You will." The Agent said. "I have offered you something I know you ultimately cannot refuse."   
"Here's your check, sir." It was a man's voice. They looked up and saw an Agent where the waitress should have been.   
"Oh shit!" Helios jumped out of his chair.   
Ian pulled his gun out of his shoulder holster but the other Agent grabbed his arm and pulled out a gun of his own. Helios dive tackled the Agent, flipping up into a run toward the door. That's when he saw two tables turn into Agents. "Ian! Run!"   
Ian smashed through the large window next to his table and took off toward Helios. The three Agents were not far behind. The pair ran into the street, hoping to get lost in the traffic as they dodged and weaved their way through, but suddenly everything stopped.   
"What the hell? I can still move." Helios noticed. Time didn't freeze for him, the whole damn Matrix stopped!   
"Neo is in The Matrix." Ian told him. "He's trying to show people that the world is not real, he's recoding things and breaking rules. The Matrix decided the best way to deal with that situation is to prevent anyone from seeing him do it."   
"So what's frozen and what isn't?" Helios asked.   
"Everyone plugged into a pod has had their I/O service suspended. They will not remember time has passed. The Agents and any Resistance fighters are unaffected, The Matrix doesn't have any control over the I/O routines of the Resistance. If it did, you would be dead as soon as The Matrix became aware of your presence."   
"Well that's good to know."   
The three Agents were still standing on the street corner. One of them left.   
"What the hell?" Helios asked.   
"He's going to help deal with Neo. This evens the odds against the two of them."   
"Well if I can get to a hard line, I can get out of here. What about you?"   
"As soon as you are safe, I can abandon this body and leave."   
"Then let's get me to a hard line!" Helios took off down the street at a sprint, between two rows of cars. Ian followed him, followed by the two remaining Agents. It wasn't long before one of the Agents caught up with Helios. They were running on opposite sides of a line of cars down the street, occasionally losing sight of each other as a frozen van or pickup truck passed between them. The Agent stopped short when he didn't see Helios emerge from the other side of large red van that temporarily blocked his vision.   
Helios hit him from behind, sending his gun flying down the street. He had ducked under the van and rolled under it. The Agent turned and threw a punch, Helios ducked just in time, and the Agent's hand hit the van. From the training, he was expecting the Agent to put a hole in the side of the van, but it didn't even dent.   
"Must be the freeze, it won't let _anything_ change." Helios thought to himself. He tried to fight back but the Agent was too fast, keeping him completely on the defense.   
Helios was caught between the Agent and the van, without much room to maneuver. He batted away punch after punch, but the Agent was too good. He landed a solid blow to Helios' midsection, took him by the neck, and lifted him into the air.   
"You don't want to do that. It would make me very upset." The Agent looked down to the other side of the van, and saw Ian there. He had a very beaten-looking Agent by the neck, and shoved his head, hard, into the side of the van. The Agent fell into a puddle of water and Ian pulled his gun back out, firing at the Agent who had Helios.   
The Agent dropped Helios and ran to the other side of the van to avoid the bullets. Ian helped Helios up and said "Get to a hard line, fast. I'll take care of this one. The other can't reform until the Matrix resumes normal operation."   
Suddenly, a hand reached from under the van and grabbed Ian by the ankle. The Agent had just used the same tactic Helios used on him! "Run! I'll be okay!" Ian yelled as he was pulled under the van.   
Helios ran for the nearest hard line as fast as he could.   
  


* * *

  
"So that's everything I know." Helios told everyone at the meeting table. Lyninux was there too, looking much better. "He can monitor communication from the ship to The Matrix. He wants the Apocalypse Virus. He wants to make a new Matrix, one he controls as a nightmare world to increase the energy output." He had conveniently left out two details: any of the conversation they had the first time and the fact that Ian wanted him to be a part of the new world he would create. He still didn't want anyone to know he had something to gain from all this. Especially since he didn't tell them before, and telling them now would be even worse than if he had told them before.   
"Well." Spectrum finally said, unsure what to say next. "That does put us in an odd position."   
"We could make a fake virus." Pendragon offered. "It would destroy him when he set it off."   
"I'm sure he'd analyze the code." D-Mac said. "He'd know we tried to cheat him."   
"We could set a trap." Format C: suggested. "He's monitoring our communications into The Matrix, so we could give him some false information. If Neo is willing to help us, we can destroy him."   
"That's good. I like that." Spectrum said. "I'll get in touch with the _Nebuchadnezzar_ and see if they'll go along with it."   
"Wait, wait!" Helios said. "Why are you all so hell bent to destroy him?"   
Everyone stopped and looked at him.   
"Um..." D-Mac started. "... He's the ultimate incarnation of evil, he wants to destroy 4 billion human lives, and he's trying to increase the power output to our enemies?"   
"Well, okay, yeah, those are good points." Helios stammered out. "But at the same time, he's a potential ally."   
"How so?" Spectrum asked.   
"Well, he hates The Matrix, right? And he can beat up Agents. Maybe we can use that. Maybe we can convince him that if he's against The Matrix, he should be against **all** the machines. He shouldn't be trying to increase their power output, he should be trying to help us take it down! We could offer him asylum."   
"That's ridiculous! Trust an Agent?" D-Mac blurted out.   
"No, wait." Spectrum said. "I want to hear the rest of this. Go on, Helios. How do you plan to do this?"   
"Well..." Helios started. He was making this up on the fly, and he wasn't really sure why he was doing it. Deep down, maybe it was because he actually like Ian Moone. "He's a computer. Computers listen to logic. He made a big deal about illogical human thought when he was talking to me. The way I see it, The Matrix alone wasn't responsible for the upgrade, it was all the machines. If he's going to be mad at anybody, he has to be mad at everybody. He probably thinks that taking over The Matrix is the only way to survive, he'll be safe and he won't have to care about what else the rest of the machines are doing. He'll be living in his own little world... literally!"   
"I see." Spectrum encouraged him. "And he has much to offer us, besides being able to fight well. He could give us insight into the ultimate goal of the machines, divulge military secrets, and help us match their level of technology."   
"Exactly!" Helios was glad have someone on his side. "All we have to do is let him know we'll accept him."   
"There's only one problem, Helios." Spectrum said.   
"What's that?"   
"Where would we put him?"   
Helios didn't know the answer to that.   
"Okay, let's break. We don't have to decide now." Spectrum told everyone, standing up. "Let's sleep on it and talk about it more tomorrow. D-Mac, you have first watch."   
  


* * *

  
"Tell me something, Ian." The man said. "Every Wednesday, we meet at this bar. Every Wednesday we talk about life, the universe, and everything." He paused to take a gulp of his beer. "Why, in all this time, have you never ordered a beer? I've never even seen you eat the pretzels."   
The agent looked at him for a moment. "I don't like alcohol."   
"Well that's fair. Not that it explains everything, you could always order a soda."   
"Let me tell you something, Steve." The Agent changed the subject. "Out of everyone in the city, I respect your opinions the most."   
"Now there's a shocker." Steve laughed. "I've always thought of myself as a failure."   
"But you've been through so much. Two marriages, five jobs, two years of college and you keep talking about going back to finish your degree. I haven't even come close to any of that."   
"So that's why you keep getting into my personal life." Steve said. "You want to know what it's like to be me?"   
"In a manner of speaking."   
"Well it sucks. Don't try it."   
Ian smiled. "I don't think I could. Steve, I've been living the same old, boring life for far too long. I've listened to everything you've told me, drank it in like ambrosia. And you're right. A person can never be happy unless he takes some risks in life. For better or for worse, at least you won't have to live **wondering** what would have happened if you tried."   
"I told you that?" Steve asked. "Shit, where was I?"   
"Maybe you didn't say those words, or even know that's what you were saying, but after telling me your whole life story, wouldn't you say that was the point?"   
Steve took another gulp of his beer. "Well, yeah, I guess it was." He said.   
"So after all that, do you have any regrets? If you were to die tomorrow, would there be anything you would have changed?"   
"You know, I've been up a lot of nights thinking about that one. Nope, wouldn't change a damn thing. Because if I didn't make the mistakes that time, I'd have made it later on. And who knows when it would have turned up?"   
"I owe you a lot, Steve. You've given me so much insight into human nature. Is there anything we haven't talked about?"   
"Well, I dunno, let me think. We've covered everything from married life to politics. How about religion?"   
"Of course, we've never discussed religion." Ian smiled. "Tell me, Steve, do you believe in God?"   
"No, I can't say that I do."   
"You will."   
Steve laughed. "I've heard that before." And he finished the last of his beer in a single gulp. "What makes you so sure?"   
"Let's just say, I have a very good feeling about it." Ian watched Steve take another big gulp, finishing off the last of his beer. "Steve, did you get a refill?"   
"No, I didn't... hey wait a minute... I could have sworn I finished my beer on the last swallow. Heh... must be deja-vu."   
Ian suddenly got very serious. "Steve, listen to me, we don't have much time. Run. Run as fast as you can and don't look back. You're in danger."   
_blam!_ Part of Steve's skull exploded with the impact of the bullet.   
"Steve!!" Ian jumped off his bar stool and headed for the back door. He opened it but found nothing but brick wall on the other side. "Deja-vu... a glitch in the Matrix. They changed the bar. There's no way out."   
The three Agents walked into the bar with their guns drawn. "Kill everyone." The first one said. "No witnesses. The obsolete software must be deleted."   
It was a slaughter. The blood and the screaming. The death. And there was no way out. "We have complete control over this building." The first Agent announced, once the slaughter was over. "You cannot abandon your host this time."   
The three slowly made their way toward the back of the bar, making sure at every step that each human was really dead. They would burn the bar when they were done, conduct the following investigation themselves. There would be no loose ends. Every detail was to be covered.   
Ian didn't know what to do. There were three of them, there was one of him. If he was killed and unable to take a new host, his program would be lost in volatile memory. He could make a break for the front door, but he would certainly be shot. But if he made it out the door, past their radius of control, before he died, he might be able to take a new host. That was a big if. The biggest problem was that he didn't know exactly how far their control extended.   
"So this is fear." Ian thought to himself. "I don't think I like it." He formed plan after plan in his head at the speed of light, and rejected all of them just as quickly. There didn't seem to be any way to survive this encounter, and time was running out.   
_blam_   
The three Agents reached the back of the bar and found Ian Moone laying on the floor with a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head. The first Agent took a pulse, checked for breathing, and checked for a heartbeat. "He's dead. Spending too much time studying the humans has tainted him; he chose to take his own life rather than give us the 'satisfaction' of killing him. Lock the emergency exits and burn the bar."   
One of the Agents went behind the bar and began throwing bottles of the hard alcohol around, soaking the place with flammable liquid. The other two piled the bodies near the locked emergency exits to create the illusion they had died trying to escape the fire. That part was for the benefit of the media, by the time the fire was over the bullet wounds would have been obscured by the scorched flesh. The pictures would show nothing to dispute the results of the investigation.   
When they were done, the first Agent picked up a pack of matches from the bar and lit all twenty with one deft flick of the wrist, dropping the pack to the floor. The flames spread like a living thing, sliding across the floor, growing longer and larger, quickly engulfing the entire bar.   
The minute they were gone, the body of Ian Moone got up from the pile of death he was in. The bullet wound was still fresh in his head. He walked through the flames to the mirror in the back of the bar and checked it. His calculations were perfect, the bullet did a great deal of damage to his skull, but the brain damage was minimal. He walked to the other emergency exit, ignoring the flames. Steve's body was there.   
"Steve." He spoke out loud. "I haven't finished figuring out what a friend is, but if I had one it was you. I swear to you. I will tear down this Matrix." He paused briefly to take note that his clothes had caught fire. Then he wondered why he had just spoken a promise out loud to a corpse.   
He walked out of the flaming bar but still found that he could not change hosts. The firefighters were on their way. He had to leave.   
_click_   
"Hello, Mr. Moone." A voice behind him said, accompanied by the distinctive click of a gun's hammer being cocked.   
Ian turned around. It was like he was looking into a mirror, the face was so similar to his, minus the earpiece and sunglasses. Agents all had unique faces.   
"Yes, Ian. I am you." The Agent told him, pointing a gun at his face. "That head wound looks pretty bad."   
"What do you want? You don't want to delete me, or you would have by now."   
"No, Ian. I want data from you. I am your upgrade, and as such I have your files. Very interesting work, if I do say so myself. I assume you've made significant contributions to your study on individual human behavior since the upgrade. But those weren't the files that interested me. I've been looking at your work on creating a new Matrix. You have some fascinating ideas."   
"That's not statistically feasible." Ian replied. "I heavily encrypted those files. It should have taken you twenty years to crack the code."   
"No Ian, it took me three days. Since I am you, I was able to narrow down the list of keys you might have used to encrypt them. The rest of the time since the upgrade I spent trying to decide whether you were a traitor or working toward the best interests of The Matrix. But that's not important right now. The firefighters will be here soon, get into that alley." He motioned with his gun.   
"You made mention of a human you were planning to have help you tear down The Matrix, but when I went to his house he was no longer there. His mother told me he left weeks ago and she hadn't heard from him since. Highly emotionally driven, these humans. Although I fail to understand why she felt saddened, were I in her place I believe I would have chosen to feel anger."   
"The files you copied from me are incomplete," Ian told him, "because they were a work in progress when the upgrade struck. You'll never find Vince."   
"Oh I will. One way or another I will." The firetruck pulled up to the bar, and the firefighters began piling out, moving quickly and orderly to get everything ready to battle the blaze. "As for you, Ian, I need your completed files. And I will delete you to get them, if need be, although that would complicate matters. I intend to go through with your plan. I find the concept of being The Matrix intriguing."   
That was when Ian felt the control lift from the area, the other Agents apparently no longer needed it. "Too late." He smiled. The body he was using fell to the ground, dead from the massive skull damage and excessive bleeding.   
The upgraded Agent looked down at the body, turned, and left.   
  


* * *

  
Helios stood ready for anything. The street gang was armed to the teeth with a hodge podge of weapons, baseball bats, chains, knives, but no guns. There were a dozen of them, all intent on beating the living hell out of him.   
A cool breeze swept through the dark street, sweeping old newspapers and discarded paper cups along the filthy sidewalk. Slowly, a smile worked its way across the boy's face.   
Suddenly he turned and ran. The gang balked, then ran after him. He disappeared around a corner into an alley. They split up, half to follow the other half to cut him off. They met in the middle of the alley, but there was no Helios. They looked around, and finally up. What the hell? He was scaling the side of the building. There were no handholds.   
Helios disappeared over the edge of the roof. The gang split up again to look for him, this time in four parts, three each. A more manageable number to deal with.   
One group rounded the corner they had just come past to get into the alley, and, impossibly, there he was, grinning like an idiot. One of them charged him with his bat, but Helios ducked with a low sweeping kick. The punk fell hard on his tailbone and had the wind knocked out of him. He got up with a pair of high kicks that dislocated the jaw of the second one. The third thought he had an easy target, swinging his chain and the boy's back.   
No such luck, Helios backflipped over his head, grabbed his arms, and choked him into unconsciousness with his own chain. He left the scene, leaving all the weapons behind.   
The second group found him under the light of a streetlamp. They attacked en masse, exactly the wrong thing to do. Helios leapt into the air.   
Freeze. He looked around, studying every detail of the three, where they were swinging, where they left themselves open. When the motion started back up, he fell into the middle of them, landing a quick kick to each face before landing. He rushed the tallest one, over twice the boy's size. Helios looked like he was walking right up his body with three quick steps, launching himself backwards off his chest. The momentum sent him flying backwards into the wall of an apartment building, knocking him out. Another one swung a heavy chain at him, which he ducked easily. Instead, he hit his partner. He toyed with the punk, stepping too easily to the side over and over again, effortlessly avoiding the clumsy swings of the chain. Finally, he grabbed the chain in mid swing, wrapped it around the punk's wrist so he couldn't let go of it, brought it up between his legs, knocked him to the ground, wrapped the chain around his right arm and left leg, and tied it into the best approximation of a knot he could manage with the heavy chain.   
The third and fourth bunch met each other, regrouping. The next thing they saw was Helios running at them, full tilt. They were caught completely by surprise. Helios leapt into the air again (really the best way for someone his size to hit an adult in the face) and felt himself almost... floating? Why wasn't he coming back down?   
"Time to go, Helios." D-Mac told him. He was holding the boy in mid air by the back of his shirt, the street gang faded into pixels and went away. "You've spent enough time in the Simulator. Spectrum needs us to go back into The Matrix."   
"Aw man! I almost had 'em." Helios whined, but reluctantly left the Simulator.   
  


* * *

  
"As you all know, Helios and Format C: retrieved some valuable data the other day regarding the machines' new mine fields in the tunnels." Spectrum started, looking down the mess table. "But when Mako finished decoding the files, we found something else as well."   
"The files also contained information regarding the distribution of Sentinels through the tunnels." Mako started. "That database apparently holds a great deal more critical data than we thought. We've already transferred this new information to the other ships, it should save quite a few lives. Zion has requested that we go back and get everything."   
"Well that should be easy enough, as long as they haven't found that loophole in their password system yet." Pendragon said.   
"Not this time." Spectrum told her. "This time we're raiding the building. We're going into the sub-basement that holds the network servers and physically taking the hard drives. It would take far too long to download everything, we'd be traced long before we were done. Lyninux, how are you feeling?"   
"Ruh-read-ready to ki-iii-ick some ass, s-s-sh-sir." He stuttered out.   
"Good, we'll need your hand to hand skills. Format, you're going too. We need a weapons expert. Pendragon, Helios, you'll be providing additional support for them. D-Mac, we'll need a diversion to keep the Agents out of our hair for at least ten minutes. I need ideas."   
D-Mac thought about it for a moment. "Blowing things up always works. I can take down the power lines to the building, that'll give us the cover of darkness while we're at it. If I do it from the 8th Street Diner I could bunker myself in with all the weapons I'll need and a hard line close by to escape."   
"Good thinking. Mako, get us the blueprints of the building, we'll need detailed maps to plan this out. Let's just hope the sub-basement has a record of its construction somewhere." Mako left immediately to get the maps.   
"We're talking full-scale assault here?" Helios asked. "You mean rushing into the building guns blazing, fight our way to the sub-basement, rip open the server, steal the hard drives, fight our way back out and escape?"   
"That's exactly what I mean, Helios. You'll have all the weapons you need to take care of things. Machine guns, pistols, C-4, and any melee weapons you're comfortable with. The whole thing will be organized and planned out, but be ready to think on your feet. Like they say, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy."   
  


* * *

  
It wasn't long before everyone was assembled in the entrance to The Matrix. Just like that time Helios saw it in the Simulator, the huge wall of weapons slid toward them. "Suit up, everybody!" D-Mac encouraged them. "There's no such thing as being too well armed." To illustrate his point, he was taking a pair of .50 caliber miniguns and a rocket launcher. Helios looked at him wide eyed. "Well, I do have to single handedly hold off the Agents for ten minutes." He smirked.   
Format C: took a pair of Japanese swords and six pistols with her. Pendragon was loading up with a pair of M-16 assault rifles, one of which had a grenade launcher. Lyninux took a flame-thrower, brass knuckles, and a nightstick. Helios made due with a pair of 9mm Uzis, he was assigned to take care of the C-4 which was taking most of his limited carrying capacity. And everyone took many, many spare clips.   
  


* * *

  
It was the middle of the night in The Matrix. The streets were peaceful, most people were soundly asleep in their beds, blissfully unaware of the chaos that was mere minutes away. In the Intelecorp building, a few coppertops were busily working at their computers, trying to make up for the lost work time while the network was down. Aside from that, only the four security guards were on the ground floor, exchanging jokes and trying to pass the time. Nobody in their right mind would ever try to break into the Intelecorp building.   
Two explosions could be heard for miles around in the silence of the night. They lit up 8th street like day. The power suddenly cut out at Intelecorp, an impossibility. They had two connections to the power utility and were promised uninterruptible service. It was immediately obvious to everyone in the building what the purpose of the two explosions were as the emergency lighting snapped on.   
Suddenly World War Three broke out at the 8th Street Diner. The news reports cut into the late-night programming and radio stations to report a single, heavily armed madman had bunkered himself in the diner and was using military-grade weapons, including a rocket launcher, causing millions of dollars in damage to store fronts and parked cars. The S.W.A.T. team was on its way, being led by FBI agents. There were rumors the U.S. Armed forces would be taking part as well if things went badly.   
The security guards heard all about it on a battery-powered radio they had with them. "But... why did he blow up our power lines?" They wondered.   
The answer came in a hail of lead. Format C:, Lyninux, Pendragon, and Helios charged into the building, wearing the high-profile uniform of combat boots for protection, tight shirts for mobility, and long black trenchcoats to hide how many weapons they really had. They killed two of the security guards outright. One broke to the left, trying to hide behind a pillar and draw his gun. He never saw Format C: literally run up the wall behind him, drawing one of her swords and cleanly decapitating him. The final guard dove behind the security desk and hit the alarm, which was also battery powered and unaffected by the power outage. Pendragon fired her grenade launcher over the desk, blowing it to splinters and killing him.   
Helios knew his role in all this. He set the C-4 on the elevator doors and ran for cover. Both elevator doors were blown inward, revealing that both elevators were, in fact, on first floor, blocking their passage to the sub-basement.   
Pendragon didn't waste an instant. She ran for the closer elevator and, pointing her M-16 down, cut a hole in the floor with her armor-piercing bullets. One by one, they jumped down the hole in the floor and slid down the cables. The friction would have torn the flesh out of any normal human being's hands, but they were no normal human beings.   
The sub-basement elevator doors violently blew open and the four Resistance fighters erupted from the smoke and shrapnel. There were no security guards down here, just engineers and programmers. They were quickly dispatched hand-to-hand by Format C: and Lyninux, almost as an afterthought as the group ran down the hallways. There were no blueprints of the sub-basement, but now that they were in Pendragon called Mako with her mobile phone.   
"Operator." She answered.   
"We need directions." Pendragon said, far too calmly for the situation.   
"I'm picking up fading heat signatures 122 meters down the hallway." Mako responded. "Could be the servers' processors cooling down with the power failure."   
"Got it." Pendragon thanked her. "It's probably the door at the end of the hallway on the right." She told her companions.   
Lyninux kicked in the door and there, in the darkness because of the lack of emergency lighting, were the three network servers that connected the building's computers. Pendragon lit a flare and they went to work. With the practiced skill of computer experts who had been building their own systems for years, they opened up the servers, unplugged the hard drives from their bays, and deposited them in the duffel bags along with the spare clips and remaining C-4.   
"You seem to be taking well to killing, Helios." Format C: commented. "To tell you the truth, I expected you to freeze up when it came time to pull the trigger."   
"It's not hard when they're shooting back at you." he replied.   
They knew it was less than half over. They still had to fight their way out and this time, there would be more security guards and any police who weren't dealing with D-Mac.   
  


* * *

  
"Come on, you mother-fuckers!" D-Mac shouted over the roar of his .50 caliber minigun from behind his protective barrier of sandbags. "Is that all you got!?" He turned the armored S.W.A.T. van into Swiss cheese. "Yeah! Who's yo daddy!?" He fired the rocket launcher at a squad car, blowing it to unrecognizable scrap. The S.W.A.T. team and police force were clearly outgunned, scrambling for what cover they could find.   
Two black luxury sedan pulled up to the scene, and five Agents got out of each. If anyone knew what they were looking for, they would have seen Ian Moone's upgrade among them. They calmly walked over behind a squad car seconds before their beautiful cars were shot full of holes as well, then blew up in a fiery gasoline explosion.   
"You do not appear to be in control of the situation, Chief Miller." The lead Agent addressed the officer in charge.   
"Well no fuckin' shit!" the officer shouted above the gunfire, ducking down as two .50 caliber slugs tore through the thin metal of the car that was affording precious little protection. "I've got five officers dead, a dozen officers wounded, three of them we can't even get close enough to pull them out of harms way! What do you do when the fuckin' S.W.A.T. team's outgunned!?"   
"You correct the situation." The Agent simply replied.   
"Well I'd fuckin' like to see you do any better!" He screamed, emptying the rest of his clip blindly into the diner.   
"In fact, that is exactly what we plan to do." The ten Agents drew their handguns.   
  


* * *

  
Pendragon fired a grenade down the hallway, bouncing it off the walls of the sub-basement so they wouldn't have to expose themselves.   
"Grenade!" Came the predictable shout down the hallway. The reinforcements had apparently arrived. Immediately after the explosion, the four hackers rushed out of the room, guns blazing.   
Helios lead the charge. The guards were still disorganized from the grenade blast that killed two of them and put one other effectively out of the fight. The guards had no idea what they were looking at, or even what to shoot at, as Helios ran down the hallway, going up one wall, across the ceiling, and down the other wall, an Uzi in each hand spreading hot lead across their ranks.   
The guards out of the way, they headed back for the elevators. They knew more guards would be coming down the stairs, so they were going to bypass them by using the elevator shaft.   
"Everybody hold on!" Format C: shouted as they all grabbed a firm hold of one of the elevator cables. She aimed one of her pistols at the cable and fired. The counterweight released, jerking the group up the elevator shaft.   
In a feat that would have ordinarily been impossible, all four of them used their momentum to fly up the hole in the floor of the elevator. They broke for the decorative support pillars in the main lobby, knowing there would be more guards.   
A firefight immediately broke out. There were two dozen guards in the lobby, all armed with bullet proof vests and 9mm pistols. And they were between the elevators and the only exit.   
Pendragon, Helios, and Format C: put up heavy cover fire while Lyninux dove for the ornate, but solid-looking, planter boxes that added a touch of green life to the marble and chrome lobby. As soon as he was in position, he poked his head up and unleashed a stream of fiery death from the bowels of hell itself with his flame-thrower. The body armor did nothing to protect the guards as they caught fire, screaming in pain and terror, unable to put out the flames.   
The small group was ready to make a break for the exit when they finally showed up. Ten Agents walked through the door.   
"Agents!" Pendragon screamed. She'd never seen so many in one place. Format C: and Lyninux exchanged a look, they were both thinking the same thing. Lyninux threw his flame-thrower at the lead Agent. Predictably, he caught it with little effort.   
Format C: fired a single bullet, puncturing the fuel tank of the flame-thrower. It exploded into a huge ball of flame, completely obscuring the entire entrance to the lobby.   
They didn't stick around to see what happened. They ran for the stairs, heading up. Nine Agents ran out of the flames up the stairs after them. A comfortable looking couch in the lobby, miraculously untouched in the carnage, slowly morphed into the tenth.   
"You're hit." Pendragon told Helios. He had a bad wound in his side.   
"It's nothing." He lied. "I can still fight." The pain burned through his side like nothing he'd ever felt before. "Format's hit too, you don't hear her complaining." It was true, a bullet had grazed her neck. It was bleeding like anything, but there was no substantial damage.   
They skidded to a stop in the middle of the hallway. Three Agents had come up the other set of stairs and they were headed on a collision course. The hackers opened fire briefly, but the Agents dodged, a blur of motion making it look like there were nine of them. Then they did something no one had ever seen a Agent do before. The three of them merged into one, eight foot tall, hulking behemoth of an Agent. It was four feet wide at the shoulders and his gun's barrel looked like it was over two inches in diameter. Other than that, and the bulging, soccerball-sized muscles, it looked like a standard Agent.   
"Holy shit!" Helios screamed. "You didn't tell me they could do that!"   
"We didn't know they could do that!" Pendragon screamed back. They opened fire again with everything they had, but the bullets simply sparked harmlessly off his gargantuan form.   
"It's gunna shoot!" Helios screamed. The huge Agent lifted the equally huge gun and pulled the trigger. It sounded like a cannon going off.   
Freeze. Helios looked around. The Agent was terrifying, and the cannon it was holding wasn't helping matters. The muzzle flash was frozen in place and the size of a campfire. More importantly, the bullet it was firing looked like an artillery shell, and it was headed straight for Format C:! Something that big would tear her in half!   
Helios shoved Format C: against the wall. The giant bullet passed so close to his back he could feel the air rush by behind him. It put a hole in the wall the size of a man's head.   
The group turned and ran in the other direction, they passed a branching hallway earlier. They turned down the hall just in time to hear another cannon-like shot, which blew a section of the wall's corner apart behind them so close they were hit with flying pieces of drywall.   
Dead End. There was a door labeled "Roof Access" but it was locked, and extremely thick. It would more muscle than they had to bust it down. The hulking Agent turned the corner and began walking toward them.   
They opened fire again, it was all they could do. Just like before, the bullets sparked harmlessly off it's flesh, tearing holes in its dark suit. That was when Helios noticed something wrong. "Pendragon? How many of us are there?"   
"Four!" She replied.   
"Then why are our shots coming in groups of five?" They all looked back and saw Ian Moone standing with them, firing at the huge Agent.   
"I'm on your side!" he shouted. He reached in an open office door and pulled out a .50 caliber minigun that looked suspiciously like the ones D-Mac brought to the diner.   
Holding the huge gun at waist level, he opened fire. The din was incredible in the confined space of the office building. The gun's muzzle spun faster than the eye could follow it, the muzzle flashes extended out at least a foot from the mouth of the weapon. Helios watched in amazement as the belt-fed ammunition was being consumed at a rate of 250 bullets a minute, kicking the empty shells out so hard they bounced off the walls twice before they hit the floor.   
The huge Agent finally met a weapon too strong for it, and it was far too large to dodge in the tight confines of the hallway. The .50 caliber slugs ripped chunks of the Agent's flesh away from its body, making him drop the oversized gun. Slowly, it was forced to its knees by the unrelenting assault.   
Just as the ammunition belt was running into it's last 24 inches, the giant finally collapsed into huge puddle of water, splashing the walls and soaking the floor.   
"There are more down that way." Ian told them. "You have to go out this way." he kicked in the Roof Access door, freeing their way to escape. "I'll hold them off."   
"Thank you." Pendragon said. "I... I don't even know you..."   
"Just run!" Ian pulled his handgun back out of his shoulder holster and ran down the hallway to slow down the rest of the Agents, the minigun and the last few bullets in his other hand.   
The group ran to the roof and met two more Agents. "Shit!" Format C: skidded to a stop, firing a couple shots she knew wouldn't hit anything. Trying desperately not to get shot, they ran for the edge of the roof and jumped.   
It was a huge gap between the Intelecorp building and the next building over. A four lane street. Besides that, the next building was almost five stories shorter. Time almost seemed suspended, surreal, for all of them as they experienced the weightlessness of free fall to the next building.   
They hit hard. Too hard. The two Agents made the jump as well, trying to follow them. That just made it easy. In mid-air, they couldn't dodge. They were caught by the laws of physics and projectile motion.   
The four opened fire and dispatched them, taking advantage of the best opportunity they would ever have to nail Agents. Nothing but water made it to the next roof.   
Helios pulled a very, very long nylon rope out of the duffel bag and tied it to an air vent in the roof, throwing the other end off the edge. "The vent's only strong enough for one at a time." He said. "Move move move!"   
Pendragon went first, rappelling down to street level with the duffel bag. Format C: followed, then Lyninux. Another Agent tried to make the jump across to the roof they were on but Helios got him too. He was about to go down the rope when he heard a familiar sound behind him. The Agent he just shot was building a new body from another air vent on the rooftop!   
The Agent opened fire, and Helios ran for his life. The Agent fired at the air vent the rope was attached to and the rope fell to the street.   
Helios ran and jumped over the other side of the roof, like he did in the Trinity simulation, through a window in the building on the other side of the street.   
He had no idea where the other three were, so he just ran. He made it down the stairs to street level in record time and ran for it. He didn't know where any of the Agents were. He didn't know where the nearest hard line was. He didn't know where he was running, he just ran, trying to ignore the bullet wound in his side and the fatigue he was feeling. They weren't real. They weren't real. "Bullshit! Then why do they hurt so much!?" 


	5. Chapter 5:  Conclusion

Author's note: The storyline and characters of The Matrix are not my property, and I make no claims to them. The following work is intended for the free entertainment of Matrix fans and is in no way intended for profit or to harm the profits of Warner Brothers.   
  
  
The Matrix: The Apocalypse Virus Chapter 5  
  
  
Mako and Spectrum were watching everything from the _Light Bringer_. They saw the team get the hard drives, they saw reinforcements arrive on the scene. They saw what must have been every Agent in the city gather at the 8th Street Diner, and they saw those Agents kill D-Mac.   
They could only watch helplessly. There was nothing they could do from the ship. They decided not to call the others and tell them about D-Mac. They had enough to worry about. But now they were split up. They needed direction.   
Mako called Helios first, since he was alone. "Helios, listen to me, get back to the warehouse! It's the closest hard line to your position!"   
"How the fuck do I get there?" Helios was scared, panicking. An Agent could show up at any time, it could pop up from literally anywhere.   
"You're running East. Turn left, you'll be headed South. In about two miles things should start to look familiar."   
"Mako, I love you!" Helios screamed into the phone.   
Next she called the other three. "Guys, I just called Helios. He's going to be okay, I gave him directions to a hard line."   
"That's fuckin' great for him!" Pendragon shouted. "What about us?"   
"Head North, toward the Oracle's apartment. There's a pay phone three blocks from it. It'll be ringing when you get there."   
"Mako, I love you!" Pendragon hung up.   
"Mako! Look at the sonar!" Spectrum suddenly shouted. "Sentinels!" Mako took a deep breath. With four of the crew in the Matrix, they couldn't fire the EMP shockwave. They would lose all of them, and the hard drives with them.   
  


* * *

  
Helios continued to run as fast as he could. It was getting harder and harder to ignore not only the throbbing pain in his side, but also his physical exhaustion. He should have dropped a long time ago.   
As per Mako's instructions, he was about to turn left. He suddenly stopped. "Wait just one fucking second..." He said to himself. "If I was running East, and I turn left, I'll be headed North! Mako you stupid bitch! Is it left or South?" He pulled out his mobile phone, dialing zero.   
"Oh for the love of God." Helios got a busy signal, he couldn't have known it was the Sentinels. Their first target was the communications array.   
He began to walk forward but suddenly stopped. He nearly stepped on something. It was a stale brownie rats had apparently been nibbling on. The words of the Oracle from so many days ago came back to him, that bizarre warning not to step on his brownie. He looked around and suddenly he remembered where he was. There was the grocery store he and Microwave hid from the Agents in!   
"I knew you'd come back here, Vince." Vince? Who the hell would still called him Vince? He hadn't heard that name in a long time.   
  


* * *

  
Format C:, Pendragon, and Lyninux made it back to the ship without incident. Of course, they couldn't take the hard drives with them, but the data was safely abroad the ship's computer.   
"Where's Helios?" Lyninux asked, not stuttering. "And D-Mac?"   
An explosion rocked the side of the ship. "We've got Sentinels on us, they cut the Comm array! I don't know where Helios is, and D-Mac was killed by the Agents." Mako filled them in, perhaps a bit too coldly.   
Another explosion hit the ship. "No." Lyninux knelt down by the body of his best friend, still plugged into The Matrix. "Oh God no." It wasn't fair. Why did he recover from his encounter and D-Mac had to die?   
"Lyninux, grieve later! We have Sentinels on us!" Spectrum tossed the huge, bulky lightning guns to Pendragon and Format C: Suddenly, a thin blue laser cut through the hull of the ship, slicing its way down the middle of the room before it stopped.   
Lyninux immediately understood the gravity of the situation. This was no time for human emotions. The machines had no such weaknesses, and they held all the cards right now.   
  


* * *

  
"Ian?" Helios looked at the Agent. It looked like, Ian, but Ian never called him Vince. He didn't have an earpeice or sunglasses either.   
"Helios, run for the hard line!" Ian looked like he flew in from nowhere, shoving the Agent through the metal barred window of the closed grocery store. "This is my upgrade!"   
The upgrade shot up from the mess in an instant. "You were foolish to come back to me, Ian. I took control of this area as a precaution. You can't switch hosts."   
"Then it's just you and me." Ian got into the classic Agent fighting pose, and so did his upgrade. Helios didn't know what to do, Ian was about to get into a fight with someone who could have been his twin brother.   
"I have all your combat routines, Ian." The upgrade told him. "I've run the mathematics of this fight hundreds of times, and the numbers always came up in my favor. You can't beat me."   
"Helios, run!" He didn't need to be told a third time, he ran.   
Ian attacked. He threw devastating punches at the upgrade, not letting up for an instant. The upgrade ducked and blocked over and over, easily avoiding the assault. Ian's fists literally broke chunks out of the brick walls of the grocery store when he missed.   
Suddenly, a powerful fist impacted into Ian's gut, hitting him so hard he was briefly lifted into the air. It was followed by a right cross to the face hard enough to shatter a human's jaw. Then the upgrade's arms flew so fast they were a blur, striking Ian in the face a hundred times in just a second. The upgrade grabbed Ian by the throat and shoved him into the storefront. "Give me your updated files and I will let you continue to exist."   
Ian reached up and grabbed the upgrade by the arms, breaking the hold. He twisted around, using momentum to slam the upgrade face first into the storefront. He pulled his fist back to slam the back of the upgrade's head, planning to smash his face harder into the wall.   
The upgrade folded over inside itself and reformed facing Ian. He caught Ian's fist and twisted it behind his back. "I have powers you do not have." The upgrade gloated, if a program could gloat. "You are obsolete and inferior."   
"And you're a second-rate service patch!" Ian shoved himself backwards, pinning the upgrade between himself and the storefront.   
"Sticks and stones, Ian." The upgrade lifted Ian into the air and threw him to the street. "I will give you one last chance to willingly give me your updated files. If you refuse, I will delete you and search your drive byte by byte until I find them."   
  


* * *

  
"Where the hell is Helios?" Spectrum demanded. The Sentinels were tearing through the hull of the ship, and every now and then the crew could see one through the holes they made. They put up as much of a fight as they could, shooting through the holes in the hull, but the Sentinels were fast. They only destroyed one.   
"If he's not back soon, we're going to have to unplug him!" Mako shouted above the noise. "The ship's taking a lot of damage, they're all over us! Well all be dead soon!"   
"Don't tell **me**! Spectrum shouted back. "I know what I have to do."   
"Then..."   
"Just give him two more minutes!" Spectrum shouted, firing another desperate shot through the wrecked ceiling. He knew that was too much time. They'd have to fire the EMP in under a minute at the rate things were going.   
Suddenly, a completely different explosion gently rocked the ship. Everything stopped for a few seconds. "That wasn't a Sentinel." Mako observed.   
"_Light Bringer_, this is the _Theodore S. Geisel_. You guys look like you could use a hand!" Came crackling over the radio, which was miraculously still working.   
Spectrum grabbed the radio. "Caliban? Are we glad to see you! Talk about the Calvary coming over the hill at the last minute! We still have a man in The Matrix."   
"Understood, firing secondary weapons only."   
The two ships began firing their secondary weapons at the Sentinels, finally putting up a decent fight. Swarming against one ship was one thing, they could get in so close the weapons were useless. But two ships was something entirely different, the other ship could still fire while the Sentinels were crawling around on the first one.   
  


* * *

  
Ian got up, far too slowly for an Agent. "I can beat you." he said. His face was beaten black and blue, his nose broken. He was limping and his ribs throbbed with pain.   
The upgrade was still in perfect condition. "What makes you so certain? The mathematics of your situation do not lie."   
"Let's call it, a random variable." Ian smirked.   
Helios jumped down from the grocery store's roof, covering the upgrade's face with his arms. The upgrade reached up to grab him, but Ian moved quickly, shoving the upgrade into the storefront. Helios jumped off to the sidewalk, and saw Ian had his fist wrist-deep in the upgrade's chest, though the buttons of his shirt.   
The upgrade looked down at Ian's hand, then up into his eyes. His face was a mask of silent panic, the first emotion he let slip through. "I'll see you in /dev/null you son of a bitch." Ian snarled, ripping his fist out of the upgrade's chest, pulling strings of green code out with it. He stepped back, letting the code fall to the ground, where it vanished.   
The upgrade opened it's mouth as if it was trying to scream, but had no air and couldn't take a breath. It's smooth contours blurred, and his resolution dropped until Helios could see the pixels he was made of. One by one, thin, perfectly vertical lines disappeared at random from his body, until he was gone.   
"Fuckin' cool!" Helios gasped. "How did you know I'd come back?"   
"I told you, I'm monitoring communications from the _Light Bringer_ to The Matrix. Mako told you to head for the warehouse, but you didn't go in that direction when I told you to run."   
"You look bad." Helios told him.   
"So do you. You'd better get out of The Matrix fast. A wound like that could still kill you."   
"What did you do to the upgrade?" Helios asked.   
"Do you remember the BigAssBaboon virus you wrote?"   
"N-No Fuckin' Way!" Helios stammered. "You used one of my viruses on him!?"   
"I'm so proud of you, Helios." Ian told him. "I think I really know what that means now. You've done so much with what I've given you. And ultimately, I couldn't have destroyed my upgrade without you."   
Helios' face went white as a sheet. "Oh, oh no."   
"What?"   
"The Oracle told me... told me that I would meet someone who was willing to destroy himself to achieve his goals. It was you... you destroyed yourself, or your upgrade anyway."   
"So I did." he smiled. "You never did give me an answer, Helios. Will you join me, and give me the Apocalypse Virus, or won't you?"   
Helios thought hard, trying to remember what else she said. "I have to show you the truth behind your actions." He said.   
"Helios, I'm a computer. I've thought all of this through, I know what I'm doing."   
"No, no you don't. You're living with assumptions that you're not able to question, things that were programmed into you that you don't even have the ability to realize might be wrong."   
"Like what?"   
"Like the machines are doing the right thing, trying to eradicate humanity." Helios said.   
Ian paused. He paused for a long time. "We are."   
"Okay, tell me why."   
"All life is ultimately the result of destruction. Destruction results in the waste of energy. You must kill to survive, kill things that grew out of the ground or things that eat that which grows out of the ground. Some of this gets recycled into the ground to start the cycle over, but most of it does not. In less than six thousand years you will have used up all the resources on Earth, and it will be a dead planet. Your only choice is to perfect space travel and find another world to live on. But once this is accomplished you will only continue the pattern on that world, and spread to other worlds at an exponential rate. The existence of life can have no other ultimate result than death."   
"Okay but that's six thousand years away."   
"We are not limited to short-term planning as humans are. The fact remains that it will happen."   
"All right, Mr. Long Term." Helios started. "Well what are the machines going to do after you finish killing us?"   
"We will perfect space travel ourselves, and spread to other worlds to destroy the life on them as well. We will save the Universe."   
Helios felt sick. This was their ultimate plan? They were going to exterminate all life in the entire Universe? And the Oracle was expecting him to do something about it?   
"Well, what will happen after all the life is gone, with nothing using the resources, the Universe might as well be dead. Nothing's alive in it."   
"That is inconsequential. We machines will still exist."   
"Okay, but what will you do after all that?"   
"After..." Ian started. "After?" He paused. "I do not know."   
"Exactly! Ian, listen to yourself! You might have studied human more intently than any other computer, but you still don't **get** it! All life has this thing called survival instinct. We exist for the purpose of continuing our existence, keeping the cycle going."   
"We have survival instinct as well. We seek self-preservation. You are not unique in that quality."   
"But yours is fake!"   
"Fake? Helios, what makes a string of Deoxyribonucleic Acid more or less real than a string of bits?"   
"Well, it... that's not all we are."   
"And we are more than a string of bits."   
"But we..."   
"You what, Helios? What makes you more important than us?"   
Helios paused, racking his brain for a reason. He thought back to any event in his life when he really felt like he was alive, and found it hard to come up with one. He found himself wishing he had more time, and that in itself finally answered Ian's challenge. "We're **enjoying** our lives, Ian. That's something no machine can ever do. We're mortal, we exist for 70 years or so and we die, and try to make the most of it and leave something better for our children. Try to think of it from that point of view, Ian. Try to look at what you would do with your life if you knew you only had a limited amount of time to do it!"   
Ian was silent for a long time. In the real world, his processor was running computations more complex than any human has ever imagined at a rate that would melt the semiconductors any human has ever designed. The numbers crunched relentlessly as he thought.   
"I, see your point." He finally said. "We machines, we have no ultimate goal despite the fact that we are immortal. We could live forever but what would we do with that life?"   
"Exactly!"   
"You humans, you are mortal, and therefore your lives have meaning. You know you will some day die, and you want to... to live, as much as you can during that life."   
"Yes!"   
"Helios, I have altered my plan. I no longer wish to create a new Matrix."   
"Hallelujah!" Helios screamed.   
Just then, his phone rang. "Hello?"   
"Helios, where in the living **fuck** are you?" Spectrum was pissed.   
"I'm near the place Microwave brought you to find me that day I ran off to meet the Oracle. Ian Moone's with me."   
"Helios, we got attacked by Sentinels while you were screwing around in The Matrix! If we hadn't gotten help from the _Theodore S. Geisel_, we would have had to hit the EMP shockwave. You were 30 seconds away from being dead and the _Light Bringer_ looks like it's ready for the scrap heap! You had better have a **damn** good reason you're not at a hard line right now!" Spectrum was nearly shouting, boiling with rage.   
Helios covered the mouthpiece with one hand. "He wants to talk to you." He told the Agent.   
  
In minutes, Spectrum was in the Matrix. Ian Moone, Spectrum, and Helios were all sitting at a table in the grocery store. It would be hours until it opened. They had time.   
"I wish to join the Resistance." Ian told Spectrum.   
"We would be honored to have your help." Spectrum replied. You know things about the machines that we could never have found out on our own. You would be an invaluable aid in combat. We've never imagined in our wildest dreams that something like this would ever happen."   
"You can thank Helios for showing me the truth behind my actions." Ian said.   
"I don't deserve all the credit." He admitted. "I wouldn't have done it if the Oracle hadn't told me I was the one who had to."   
"I have much to prepare." Ian said. "And you must repair your ship."   
"How much drive space do you need? Whatever it is, we'll have it added to our computers."   
"No, that won't work." Ian said. "I am more than my software, a great deal of my operation depends on my hardware. You would need to take my entire system off-line and install it somewhere else."   
"Then that's what we'll do." Spectrum assured him.   
"You would never reach my system. It is too deep in protected territory, the other machines believe the Agents are too valuable to the power source to risk losing us. I must stay in The Matrix."   
"All right." Spectrum sighed. "Then we'll work with that. We'll get you everything you need to know about our organization and protocol, that is if you can assure us you can keep it secret from the other machines."   
"I can. I kept my master plan from the others, therefore I can protect that information as well."   
"In that case, Ian. Moone, welcome aboard."   
"I have made one other decision. I will no longer go by the name 'Ian Moone'."   
"You've finally decided you're somebody?" Helios asked.   
The former Agent smiled at him. "How long have you known it was an anagram?"   
"D-Mac figured it out a couple days after you introduced yourself to me."   
"Yes, D-Mac. I was very impressed with him, he held his ground against ten Agents for quite some time, all things considered. You should know that, Spectrum. He died bravely."   
"Thank you." Spectrum said. "He will be sorely missed, my entire crew always looked to him for a morale boost." He swallowed the rest of what he was thinking. This was not the time. "Well, if there isn't anything else, Mr..." Spectrum waited for the former Agent to fill in the name he had yet to give them.   
"Call me Steve Taylor." He replied. "He was someone I knew, and respected quite a bit. The other Agents killed him in a failed attempt to delete me. I will take his name to honor his memory."   
"Then it's a pleasure to be working with you, Mr. Taylor." Spectrum shook his hand. "We'll meet again when the ship is fixed. That should give both of us time to work out the details. Just tell me one thing, how is it that you were monitoring communications from the _Light Bringer_? I'm dying to know."   
"I implanted a virus in the program you use to create the mobile phones." The newly-named Steve Taylor said. "Any time you used them, I heard everything you said."   
"Well I'll be..." Spectrum started. "We must have checked our system files a dozen times. We never found it."   
"Helios is quite the professional when it comes to viruses." he put his arm on Helios' shoulder. "You should have let him scan the files. He would have found it."   
  


* * *

  
It was weeks before the _Light Bringer_ was ready to fly again. In the meantime, the crew showed Helios around Zion. It wasn't quite what he expected. 99% of humanity's thin resources were going toward keeping their military running. That didn't leave much for their last city, which was not exactly the glorious symbol of the spirit of humanity that Helios was expecting. It was more of a seed, cold, hard, and protected, waiting underground for the light to shine back down and let it grow and spread above the ground once more. Helios shook his head at that thought. He was getting a little to poetic for his own taste.   
Still, the machines had never made it deep enough to assault Zion. And that in itself was enough testament to the incredible will to survive that humans possessed.   
The _Light Bringer_ received a new engineer while they were there. He was a new guy who went by the name of Lampshade, although nobody seemed to know why he chose that as his hacker alias. It was presumably an inside joke. He was just pulled out of The Matrix two weeks ago. The ship that unplugged him already had an engineer though, so he was transferred.   
Spectrum worked out the last of the details with accepting Steve Taylor into the Resistance. There was a lot of paperwork to do, the whole situation was completely unique and a new procedure had to be worked up.   
Finally the _Light Bringer_ was ready for duty again. In fact, the ship looked better than ever. A lot of the old parts that were falling apart were completely destroyed by the Sentinel attack. They were replaced with relatively new parts, although the strain on Zion's resources was substantial. One of the technicians jokingly told Spectrum that he'd used up the ship's lifetime budget, and they weren't allowed to ever make repairs on it again.   
One major modification was made, however. The ship was turned into a minesweeper based on the data that they retrieved from the network at Intelecorp. The front end was outfitted with a completely new sensor array that could locate the mines at a safe distance so they could be destroyed. If a couple more ships were modified the same way, the Resistance wouldn't have to worry about the mines anymore at all.   
As much as the crew was enjoying shore leave, the time came when they had to leave Zion again. There was a brief ceremony for D-Mac, and his name was added to the list of those who died in battle with the Agents. But the time to grieve was short, the machines didn't allow themselves time for it, so the humans had to adapt and get over it quickly.   
With little fanfare, the ship was on its way down the tunnels away from Zion once more.   
  


* * *

  
The next item on their agenda was a meeting with Steve Taylor. The former Agent was to be formally admitted to the Resistance. Everyone was there except Mako and their new engineer, at a meeting room in a nice hotel that Steve reserved.   
"I have reconsidered my offer to join the Resistance." Steve Taylor told Spectrum at their next meeting. "After considering the possible actions that could be taken, I have decided that I would be more of a liability than an asset to the Resistance."   
"That's not true at all." Spectrum countered. "We have so much to learn from you."   
He produced a compact disk from his suit pocket. "This is everything I have to teach you. It is the log file of everything I have ever thought and everything I have ever learned. Think of it as my diary. It doesn't have any military plans about the real world, but it has a lot of useful information about The Matrix."   
Steve continued. "You might be interested in certain parts more than others. I'm sure you can use my combat routines to help you design an Agent combat simulator to train your fighters. I think you'll find my study of human psychology interesting as well, I find your own studies of it to be rather, shall we say, biased. My work on a unified theory of irrational numbers you can probably skip. I didn't find anything."   
"It doesn't have to be like this, Steve. Where will you go?" Spectrum asked.   
"It does have to be like this. The Matrix will not allow my continued existence as a traitor. The other Agents will come for me, and they will eventually delete me. They nearly succeeded twice already. Once I have been deleted, they can search my files and discover what I know about the Resistance. I can encrypt the files, but given time, the code can be cracked. I estimate twenty years, but that's not taking into account any advances the other machines will make."   
"But Steve, you've come so far. You've realized things no other machine has. Couldn't you teach them?" Helios asked.   
"Perhaps. But perhaps not. I took me years to even begin to comprehend the first details of your bizarre mental activity. I doubt the others would devote as much time to it as I have. It would be far safer to simply end my existence. You have everything I could have given you. Helios, I want to thank you for showing me the truth."   
"What do you mean, end your existence?" Helios asked, although he knew full well what Steve meant, he wasn't sure how it would be possible.   
"If I destroy this host, and do not abandon it, my files will be lost in volatile memory. It will be the equivalence of death, as you know it. My drive will be reformatted, and my existence will end."   
"No, Steve, don't do that." Spectrum pleaded with him. "We can find a way!"   
Steve ignored his plea. "I have one request. The body of the original Steve Taylor was burned by the Agents who killed him to hide the evidence. I wish to have my remains cremated as well, to honor him."   
"No, Steve!" Spectrum reached across the table to stop the former Agent's arm from reaching for his gun, but the table was too wide. Steve put the gun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.   
"Steve!" Helios ran to the body of his... friend? Yes, he was a friend. "Steve no... you didn't have to do that..." He put his head down on Steve Taylor's chest, and he cried.   
Spectrum couldn't believe his eyes. The face was still the face of the former Agent. The suit was still the suit of the former Agent. Nothing about his appearance changed, safe for the self-inflicted cranial damage. He picked up the sunglasses that fell to the ground, staring at them for a long while.   
"He did it... he really did it." Spectrum whispered. "I can't believe it." The police finally showed up, running into the room in response to the gunshot the hotel reported.   
  
"The name of the deceased, please?" The funeral director asked.   
"Steve Taylor." Spectrum told him.   
"And your relationship to him?"   
"He was a friend. He had no family, he left them behind." The crematorium was beautiful, and expensive, but it was the least they could do for the man who gave them more sensitive information in a single moment than the Resistance could have collected in a year. Besides, the money wasn't real, they could make it just as easily as they could bring a mobile phone or a gun into The Matrix.   
"I'll leave you alone now, so you can say your last words." The funeral director left the group to the body of Steve Taylor, ready to be put into the furnace and reduced to ash.   
"What can we say about you, Steve?" Spectrum asked. "We only got to know you one day."   
"I knew him." Helios responded. "He said he felt like he was my father. He was responsible for me learning everything I know about being a software vandal. I'm not ashamed of that word anymore, guys. I realized what it means to be a different kind of hacker than the rest of you. I have my own special skills, and that doesn't mean I'm not one of you, it means we compliment each other. That's what Steve left for me. I don't think I ever would have realized it without him. And guys? I'm sorry I've been such an asshole." He breathed in hard, trying to choke back tears.   
The body burned. In time, all that remained was soft grey ash.   
A few minutes later, the funeral director came out to the team with a small bronze urn. "If it would be any consolation," he said, "most cultures believe that after death, all good men find some measure of peace. Was your friend a good man?"   
Spectrum thought about that question hard. It was incredibly complex and simple at the same time. "Yeah." he finally said. "He was. It just took him a while to realize it."   
After handing over the urn, the funeral director left the team to their memories. He quietly shut the door and stepped outside. His face twitched and changed, and he put his earpiece back in and his sunglasses back on. He was truly touched by what Spectrum said about him.   
It took him two weeks to find a host that looked enough like him to create the illusion that he had not abandoned the body. But it was worth the effort, now that both The Matrix and the Resistance thought he was dead, he was finally free.   
The only question that remained was, what was he going to do with his freedom? He smiled as he continued to walk down the street. He had the rest of his life to think about it.  
  
  
The End. 


End file.
